Author: brianlaurance

Smartish out of bed this morning and into the car wash, vacuum the interior, dust the dashboard, fill the tank and back home to pack up. For today we were off to Lake Argyle and the caravan park situated on the shoreline.
But no!
A quick review of our 5 nights in Kununurra revealed we had only been here four nights.
So what to do when you have an unexpected day off?
Back to read more of the plaques in Celebrity Park and go to lunch at the Country Club Resort, an oasis in the centre of the city. Kelly’s Bar and Grill yum, yum yum!
We like Kununurra.

We spent Saturday visiting a couple of parks, shopping and taking in the hero event on the Kununurra calendar, the rodeo. After two months on the road we have been accepted as real nomads, for one couple from the Bungle Bungles emailed us enquiring what we were doing Saturday night. We said rodeo and when we got there we met up with another couple from Wyndham, so all six sat proudly together (in our own chairs!) on the hill overlooking the action.

Again, difficult to get the pictures in sequence.

I was here about 40 years ago and cannot equate today’s townsite with what I saw four decades ago. Sufficient to say Kununurra still does not have a copiousness about it. Streets and verges are neat—-nice for judging tidy towns competitions—-with the police station and local courthouse the two stand-out architectural pieces. There’s Coles (difficult to actually find) and the usual IGA, strangely called the tuckerbox, a very refined tropical paradise property housing the country club resort and all nestled in a Walter Burley Griffin type urban street design.
Setting out yesterday morning I felt largely ho-hum about this hydrological wonderland. And just like Cuba Gooding Jnr in that movie with Mr Roast Leg of Lamb (TC) kept repeating “show me the money; show me the money; show me the money” is exactly what I wanted from this East Kimberley locale.
It was then that we found Weaber Plains Road and ventured way out of town where we found “the money” or the essential substance of Kununurra.

Vast tracts of farming land with a healthy superabundance of sunflowers, quinoa, flowers, chia, melons, mangoes and over 6,000 hectares of sandalwood. The lifeblood without which there would not be a Kununurra.
Mountain ranges and geological fault lines frame the farming, with abundant irrigation water caressing the fertile plains with the occasional hawke circling lazily against a big blue sky.

There was abundant advice from the regular 5 o’clock attendees to skip Wyndham altogether, “nothing to see here—-move right along!”
First impressions when you do arrive could indicate the evening imbibers might be right. The last frontier looks very down-at-heel; the new police station is outstanding among a motley bunch of temporary iron buildings, many abandoned; except for the Rusty Tin Shed cafe which is quite as the name implies. But the lunches were extraordinary. Brilliant quiche and salad and Rusty (or Mr Shed the chef) cooks up a mean Rusty Burger.
Being parched in the 37 degree midday sun I went across the road to the pub to buy a couple of tinnies to go with lunch.The lady publican invited me behind the bar and into her kitchen to select the coldest Carlton mids from her own fridge. Appears the bar refrigeration hasn’t worked for years!

But the road to Wyndham is 200 plus kilometres of arguably Australia’s most spectacular mountain ranges; all the ever changing hues of Namatjira paintings, kite birds lazily circling on the thermal currents, trees and grasses covering the full spectrum of green tonings, a rock wallaby or two, but it is the backdrop of the ranges that exude strangely attractive shapes around every corner.

And in the late afternoon we visited Wyndham’s lookout, giving a high altitude overview of the spectacular country you earlier traversed. The highest point of the Bastion Ranges (330m) affords you a bird-eye view over the vast Cambridge Gulf including the Durack, Pentecost, King, Forrest and Ord Rivers. Appropriately named the 5 rivers lookout it’s a wonder to behold, with a sunset thrown in for free.

click on or touch the pictures below to enlarge

Our day trip yesterday was quite inspirational. We actually walked among the beehive domes and what’s more—–we could touch them. No need to Google for pictures: we’ve got them all ourselves.
Well I might snitch a cathedral picture because not even the ABC tours of Europe sets you up for capturing the sheer majesty and size of nature’s red cavernous sanctuary. (The real trick is to upload all the pictures in the order you want them. One day!)
The Bungle Bungles is a world phenomena in stone that is so uniquely Australian.
While Turkey may also have similar shaped domes, only the Aussie variety has the exclusive banding making them look like a neapolitan ice cream cone.
The cost of the 10 hour trip was pricey; not in dollar terms, but 5 hours in a huge 4WD bus travelling over some of the world’s best corrugated bush tracks. A heavily pleated road of dust providing a unifying massage of all the jiggly bits of 38 elderly senior cits.
About 5 kilometres of walking to see the sights from Picaninny Lookout and then Cathedral Gorge accomplished well before a welcome lunch and then back on the bus for more jiggling and Echidna Chasm. (your blogger joined the others who welched on the joys of the chasm, but the intrepid Isabel rounded out the day with a few more kilometres of bush walking and while I write, she is lying down recuperating)—me thinks it’s better to know the limits of Osteo Panadol & retire gracefully.
They round out the day’s touring with a dinner back at the caravan park which is a nice thought, after starting out the day at 7am.
Today we head for Wyndham in the East Kimberley, with its mission statement of “the last frontier” and “top town of Western Australia”

One would suppose that a gorge named Geikie to be a 21st Century reflection of a computer nerd.

But no!

This stunning and very accessible Fitroy River gorge was named after a Scottish geologist of high British ranking, who incidentally never came to Australia. Obviously some toady in the lower ranks of theodolite acolytes thought he’d get a release from the rigours of pack horses and caravanning during summers in the Kimberley ‘wet’ by naming the place after his boss.

Regardless of its naming origins, the gorge is astonishing. A quirk of nature; centuries old water-worn limestone edifices of ever changing colours from top to bottom and you can take it all in from a wee boat gliding effortlessly upon the pristine fresh waters.

Fresh waters that are home to crocodiles that laze in the sun upon the banks, while wallabies come down for a drink, herons wade in the shallows looking for small prey and Bottle Swallows build clay nests on inverted rock shelves.

But by far the most astounding beauty is found in the reflection of centuries old water-worn limestone edifices of tricolour layers reflected in the stillness of the fresh waters. And a long way from the fleeting influence of the Royal British Geological Society in Victorian England.

We loved Derby!

A town with a manicured main street displaying Boab after Boab ( they do lose their leaves in the dry season) but indicates a community that cares about its surroundings.

Not just another wild west town!

We had a terrific shady site for our home on wheels; visited the former Boab prison site, a lunch at the Sandfire Hotel, a modern  pub in the middle of the town, borrowed books and DVD’s from the library, saw the Wharfinger Museum and experienced another sunset. (Wharfinger is the title given to the owner or manager of a wharf. Simple!)

About 35 years ago I visited Norman Brearley at his home in Peppermint Grove to ask if he would attend the opening of the new Geraldton airport. Sir Norman would be the guest of Skywest Airlines and he would be invited to pilot the aircraft on the northward journey.
The spry nonagenarian bounded out of his chair to shake my hand in a ready acceptance of the invitation to return to piloting once again.
So imagine my surprise when today in Derby I learned of Brearley’s establishment of West Australian Airways first 1921 air service linking Derby with Geraldton and thence to Perth which then was the world’s longest passenger airline route. Sir Norman then employed, as one of his initial 5 pilots, Charles Kingsford Smith.

That was a full year ahead of the commencement of Qantas out of Winton and Longreach in Queensland.

And on this our travels around Australia we also plan to see the Queensland outback which includes the place of origin of Brearley’s contemporary Sir Hudson Fysh.

Interestingly it was the Kimberley parliamentarian M.P. Durack MP who assisted Brearley in his early north-west establishment years, plus assisting the aviator setting up a hangar on Langley Park at the rear of Durack House on Adelaide Tce Perth.

But back to the Skywest invitational flight by Sir Norman. He attended the airport opening in Geraldton, briefly taking the controls from the right hand seat en-route. Brearley was a very popular inclusion at the event and he took me gently aside during the festivities and told me that an old aircraft engine displayed in the new facility was once a part of West Australian Airways operational aircraft.
“Brian, I never did own one of those engines” he intoned, but let’s not spoil their celebrations!”

Tomorrow here in Derby we are planning to visit Wharfinger Museum, the harbinger of Derby’s historical significance including the early airline business. Perhaps it would be handy to have Sir Norman looking over my shoulder.

The FIFO grandkids are enjoying their school holidays with a great playground at Town Beach, in fact within an hour of our arrival the tide had whooshed out.

A terrific museum (their choice), sunsets at Cable Beach, a chrystal Buddha, magnificent Boab specimen and the Pied Butcherbird which awakes us each morning with its fantastic bird call. I will try and work out how to include a link on the blog for you to hear this wonderful songster.

And so to the bloody breezes.  Every day this week the winds have ripped thru the place at 25 – 45 Km an hour which drives everyone nuts. Fine sunny days. But the winds!