Back to civilisation, booked in at the Big 4 camp site Kununurra, very busy big change from Parry’s but just using it as a base for sight seeing and replenishing stocks.
Decided to go on an organised coach and boat trip to see Lake Argyle and the Ord River. managed to book one for the next day.
After a 2 hour coach trip we stopped at the Durack Homestead Museum. This homestead was originally built in 1894 by the Durack family one of the biggest pioneering farming families in Australia, they farmed most of the land in the Ord river valley, The river is 650km long.
When it was decided to flood the valley in the early 1970’s a decision was made to remove the homestead brick by brick and rebuild it as a museum, Which has now become a tourist attraction.
They also moved all the family graves from the valley and reinstated them in the garden as before.
In the garden there were a pair of bower birds, these birds collect items and keep them in their nests as a means of attracting mates.
These are just a couple of crested pigeons.
Off again on the road to the dam.
This is the overflow from the lake, which is situated 8km from the dam and bypasses the excess water back into the river further downstream. This is a very low flow at this time as there has not been any rain for some time.
First view of the lake.
Now we have reached the dam. This dam is constructed entirely from clay approximately 2,000,000 cubic metres. It is 335metres long and 99 metres high.
The lake normally has a surface area of 1,000 square kilometres and holds 10,763,000 Megalitres of water, This can increase to 2,000 square kilometres in full flood. This enormous capacity is required as most of the rainfall is during a 2 month period of the year
The dam also houses a 30 Megawatt hydroelectric power station that provides all the electricity required for Kununurra and surrounding countryside. and has reduced oil consumption in East Kimberly by 60,000,000 litres per year.
We boarded a boat at the dam and proceeded down the 56km length of the Ord river that becomes the Lake Kununurra. The boat disturbed some of the local wildlife.
The river is very slow moving as there is not a large change of level between the dam and the lake Kununurra where it is dammed again.
More wildlife, a few fruit bats in the trees an the river bank.
There were more freshwater crocodiles on the banks all down the river,
We moored on the river bank at a picnic area for lunch.
Continuing on our journey we disturbed a brolga. This is a large bird of the crane family and stands up to 3.5m high and has a wing span of 2.4m. a bird not to be messed with. just visible flying over the hilltop.
It was getting dark by the time we got to Lake Kununurra.
It was too dark to see the lake Kununurra diversion dam, so I returned the next morning before continuing my travels to have a closer look. This dam controls the level of the lake and the lower part of the Ord river and gravity feeds the irrigation of 13,000 hectares of farmland and there are plans to increase this area quite substantially.
The dam including levees is 5km long and store 100,000,000 cubic metres of water in the lake. This whole project is amazing and must be one of the largest of it’s kind in the world.
On the road again next town Katherine just under 600km.
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