Thursday 21st August 2014 – Bungle Bungle to Kununurra – Fine Sunny Clear Skies 6.5c - 31c

We packed up and were on the road by 7.23am, even surprised ourselves.  That was from the camp ground in reality we then spent another 2 hours on the road out and after adjusting the tyre pressures back for the tar and having a cup of tea we were on the Great Northern Highway by 9.30am.  It was a three hour drive to Kununurra.  We passed a few road trains with 4 trailers, I was doing the math on the number of tyres on these trucks and calculated one truck had 120 tyres – mindless I know.

 

 

Great road and views all the way to Kununurra.  We saw our first Dingo and had a lot of trouble recognizing it.  It crossed the highway in front of us and had no hair only a small tuff of yellow fur on it’s back.  It had the worst mange was skinny and probably not long for this world.

They were doing cool burn offs in preparation for summer, the birds were taking advantage of the snacks running from the fire.  There was a mass of birds circling overhead.

 

 

 

 

 

There is a nice park on the Ord River at the diversion wall.  This side is Salt Croc territory and above the wall are just freshies or so you think.  They tell you that it’s okay to swim and ski etc in the lake, but down at the boat ramp there was a sign warning that a Estuarine Croc had been spotted in in one of the gorges, no kayaking for us.

This pelican was taking a shortcut in fishing.

9 metres above Glen is the flood debris.

 

 

Here is my sepia of a boab tree.

The boab is the icon of the area and there

are lots of boab souvenirs for sale, mainly on tee shirts.

 

 

 

 

 

 We booked into “Hidden Valley” Caravan Park, one of many in town and dropped off the trailer to a site and went for a drive around the town.  We headed out to a new estate with land for sale.  Lakeview Estate. This is the view from the lakeside park, but not too many houses had a view of the lake.  Colorbond is the popular choice for the walls and no gutters. The land size was very small and large houses crammed together with narrow streets, a bit strange considering the amount of available land out here.

 

 

We did a restock shop at Coles (to get a discount fuel docket – to take the sting out of the fuel price around town at $1.91) This is the first main stream supermarket that we have seen since Alice Springs.

Our camp neighbours are the same as we had at the Bungle Bungles.  They are also heading down the Gibb River Road.  They are Swiss (Jonnie & Irene) (with 2 children, Luis & Mona)  and are on a four month trip Australia/Easter Island/South America. We had a mini reunion discussed where we were all heading. Our other Bungle Bungle camp neighbours (who we have named Hansel & Gretel, as we aren’t sure of their names (Germans – with 4 children) are at El Questro and we saw the large group from Newcastle who are doing the Kimberley Camper Tour 2014 give us a wave.  We are surrounded by a multitude of single person dome tents – Backpacker Land.  They must be working on the farms as there is no one around until late in the day.  They aren’t noisy, probably too tired from slaving in the hot sun each day.  Our new Kununurra camp mates next door are also German,  Glen says that we are having a European Summer Holiday. 

The caravan park has shady trees and grass and plenty of water with great hot showers and amenity blocks and has a camp kitchen as well. Its a welcoming place and really friendly.