Our first stop in WA was Lake Argyle, Australia’s biggest man-made lake. We marveled at the size of the lake and the Dam wall and set about to try and find some more information about the dam and it’s construction. We found a few sign boards, but they didn’t tell us a lot. The Ord River Dam was built in the late 1960’s when the government at the time saw it as an opportunity to create a permanent water source and set up and irrigation system to create a food bowl for Australia in the north. It officially opened in 1972. We then made our way to the Durack Homestead, which we really didn’t know much about, but we thought it was worth a look. We were certainly not disappointed. This homestead was built by the Patsy Durack with help of his sons Michael and John on the banks of the Behn River. Fast forward to the late 1960’s and this river was to become part of Lake Argyle and the homestead would end up at the bottom of the lake! To avoid this happening, it was deconstructed and stored in Kununurra until it was re-built on the site that it is today as it was deemed to be a valuable part of history. Here we found out a lot about the construction of the Dam as there was a documentary playing in the homestead. We also learnt about the early settlement of this area and to journey of the Durack family. What we found most interesting was that the lake filled much quicker than they expected, and they were unable to get the things out of the farming sheds and stables in time. You can now do a dive tour on the original homestead site, and they say that you can still see the saddles in the stables ready to be put on the horses! The company that built the dam had to ship the machinery from overseas and then get it on site, they also decided it was easier to just leave it on site and let the machinery go underwater too! Haydan was very interested in the construction of the dam and how it was built and learnt a lot from this visit.
It was then
on to Kununurra which we found out is an Aboriginal name that means place of water. We also learnt that Kununurra
only became a town in the 1960’s and was only developed to service the building
of the dam! We stayed at a great spot on
the banks of Lake Kununnurra and it was here that the kids caught the fishing
bug. Especially Emmalisa who would flick
to lure until it was too dark to see.
The kids were enjoying the fishing so much we decided to hire a dinghy
and try our luck on the lake. The
scenery on the lake was spectacular to see and we had a great day on the water
but unfortunately didn’t catch a fish.
While at Kununurra we looked at Diversion Dam that we learnt about as
part of our visit to the Durack Homestead.
It was great to see what we had learnt about and see it in full
operation. We also did our first ‘big’
water crossing at Ivanhoe Crossing. We
tried our luck fishing on the other side of the crossing but once again those
elusive Barra have escaped us! As we left Kununurra we quickly stopped off and looked at Molly Springs, it was hard, but we managed to keep Emmalisa dry with the promise of a swim later in the day at Emma Gorge!
It was then
on to El Questro, a place we have been looking forward to on this trip! We enjoyed El Questro so much last time we
travelled, and we have told the kids so much about it we were all keen to get
there. Our first stop was Emma
Gorge. We enjoyed the walk into the
Gorge and Glen and Laura were impressed with how easy it was this time without
a baby-backpack and a 3 year old! We
remembered that last time we didn’t go for a swim because it was cold but
Emmalisa does not visit a waterhole and not go for a swim so we thought we
would brave it. Even the freshwater
crocodile crusing around didn’t deter Emmalisa from a swim. The water was definitely not cold, it was
beyond freezing! It actually made out body ache it was that cold. We did get in though
and Emmalisa swam with the crocodile! Someone told us there was a little
thermal pool to the right hand side so we thought we would try and check this
out. We did find it and it was warmer
there. Haydan decided we were all crazy
getting in and made the choice to stay dry.
He did however climb over the rocks to us and put his dam building
knowledge to good use and built a dam wall to hold in the warm water. We all enjoyed this for a bit until we
realised we had to get back in the freezing water to get out! Haydan once again took the dry option and
climbed over rocks and was so proud of his effort to stay dry, only to fall in
on his final step! We all got a good
giggle out of that! We then went to El Questro Station to find our campsite. We
had a great site with our own river access, and we were able to have a
campfire. So, first things first, we
made a camp oven cake! The next morning,
we soaked ourselves at Zebedee springs for hours, literally! It was so nice to sit in the thermal springs
and just relax! That afternoon we went
for a bit of an explore of the station and went to Pigeonhole Lookout. The landscape in the Kimberley is truly
amazing and even the kids commented that the photos don’t do it justice. It was then home to bed for a good night
sleep as we were off to attack El Questro Gorge the next day!
We set off at
8am the next day to hike into El Questro Gorge.
This was going to be a 10km hike for us as we don’t have a snorkel on
the car so we couldn’t do the deep water crossing to get to the carpark. Instead, we had to walk the 1.6km to the
carpark but first we had to get through the water crossing, on foot! We took the track to the side and could not
stop laugh as we trudged ankle deep (and sometimes shin deep) sinking and
sloshing in the mud! Once we got through
the mud we now had to walk to the start of the walk! Once we got to the actual gorge walk we were
once again in awe of the Kimberly landscape.
It almost seemed like the landscape was continually changes with every
few hundred metres. Our shoes didn’t
stay muddy for long as there was water that we had to walk through as part of
the walk. Then we arrived at Halfway Pool, the first challenge of our hike.
We had to cross waist deep water with our backpacks over our heads to
keep them dry. We then had to have one
person spider monkey up the escarpment and pass the backpacks up to them before
the rest of us followed. Emmalisa was
too short to be able to get up to the part where she had to spider monkey between the rocks, so she had to swim to
the other side of the rocks and be helped up that way. The walk continued and got harder the further
we went. We continued to walk through
some water, climb over boulders and up cliff faces. At one point we also had to climb up the side
of a water fall with not much to hold on to or step on! This was certainly a challenge and took some
teamwork and concentration! However,
when we reached the end of the walk and saw the El Questro Gorge waterfall at MacMicking Pool it was more than
worth it. It was so beautiful and
tranquil here and we enjoyed a swim to cool off after our big hike in! Once we cooled off, we then had to start
making our way back, which was just as challenging going down as it was going
up. We made it back to the car 5 hours
later with some very weary bodies but a huge sense of achievement. Emmalisa even fell asleep in the car on the
short drive back to the Station. We
treated the kids to a lunch at the café at the Elquesto Station and an ice
cream for their massive effort! It
didn’t take much to get to sleep that night and the next day we were up early for our
morning Horse Ride Tour around the station.
Emmalisa was so excited to go on this horse ride and was over the moon
to find out she was going to ride on Tinkerbell! It turns our Emmalisa's horse loved to eat and she spent most of the ride trying to keep Tinkerbell on the track and out of the the grass that she kept eating! Glen got to ride on Robroy who was a very
slow horse that was sleeping standing up before we left. Laura was on Limerick, a wise soul who knew
the ropes and just followed nicely along the path. Haydan was on Roy a big old horse that kept in
step from the back of the line. We all
enjoyed the ride through creek crossings and the Station landscape. This was the final horse ride for the season
as it is starting to get too hot for the horses. When we got back to the
stables, we found out that it was the last ride for Haydan’s horse Roy! He was now going into retirement. The stable hands then took a photo of Haydan
and Roy as Haydan is now known as Roy’s last ride! Everyone then thought it was really special
when we told them it was Haydan’s first ride.
So, it was a ride of firsts and lasts!
Before we
left El Questro we went to Zebedee Springs one last time to soothe our weary
bodies from our hike and horse ride. We now continue our journey through the
Kimberley.
