Heading west along the Victoria Highway had Kylz and I both pretty keen to cover the last few hundred kay's to the WA border. WA with its many and varied attractions was the sentimental favourite of ours when planning our year long holiday. Kylz being born a "sand groper" in the mining town of Kalgoorlie was especially looking forward to crossing the border. Given that the year was slipping away from us faster than we had expected (we knew it would!) we both hoped to be able to see all the sites we had pin pointed during our couple of years of preparation.

Victoria River Roadhouse was our first stop for the night and as we had only left Katherine around lunch time the short trip of only about 200km suited us all that day. As its name suggests you are camped right on the bank of the mighty Victoria River. It is a truly grand river and is one of many famous rivers of this area that were the lifeblood of the fledgling cattle era and continue to this day to support the huge cattle industry of the east and west Kimberly. These huge cattle properties, Victoria River Downs, Auvergne, Wave Hill (just for example) their famous and sometimes infamous history and the sheer scale of their operation has always captivated my imagination and admiration for those that work in this area and especially for those who came before them into what would have surely been Australia's wildest frontier.

After a short look around and a pretty comfortable overnight stop we pushed on westward hoping to cross into WA and set up in the almost border town of Kununurra. We pulled into Timber Creek for a quick rest stop and then also had a look at Big Horse Creek camp ground only 10km further along the highway. It is right on the Victoria River and has a large boat ramp and apparently there are house boats anchored downstream that are very popular with tourists in the dry season. Driving through this eastern stretch of the Kimberly it is impossible to miss the amazing scenery as the road makes its way around large rock cliffs, plateaus and gorges. It truly is something to see for the first time!

Now crossing into WA is not quite as simple as most of our other state boundaries. Strict quarantine measures see all vehicles go through a checkpoint for inspection. With the main focus on fruit and vege, the humble cane toad from back home is one visitor on the most wanted list in WA and the Kimberly. There are signs everywhere telling you of the importance of keeping them out of WA and it is something they take pretty seriously. We had ourselves ready this time for the border crossing and after a quick bit of paperwork and an inspection of the fridge and cupboards in our van and car we were over the border and into the wild-west!

Making the short drive from the border to Kununurra you pass the turn off for Lake Argyle. We pushed on into Kununurra as we had decided to camp in the town and make a day trip back out to the Lake for a look around. Our first stop after setting up the van was to the local shops as due to the border restrictions we were all out of fruit and vege. After this we took a drive up to Kelly's k*** lookout over Kununurra and then out to Ivanhoe Crossing. The lookout gives a pretty good view of the area and it is dominated by mixed farming. Apparently sandalwood is the most popular of crops in the area however from what we saw it looks a pretty scrappy tree to grow as a lot of grafting has to be done to the tree. Grown for its oils as a fragrance and popular in Asian countries it is a very profitable crop, even if it takes years to establish. Chai is also gaining popularity and is a very neat looking small bush a lot like lavender. Melons and most other things are grown in the area as well and there is a lot of work being done to reintroduce sugar cane as it was severely affected by disease when previously grown in the area in large quantities.

Driving out of town and through a lot of that farming country you reach the Ivanhoe Crossing spanning the mighty Ord River. With such a large wet season and, as we were told, still 4m of water running over the spillway at Lake Argyle it is no surprise that there was still a metre or more of very hard running water pouring over this downstream crossing. Locals told us that they will not be able to use this crossing at all this year as the wet season will return before it is reopened. It is not a bad fishing spot as we watched one bloke pick up a couple of small barra on a little squidgy rig in the snags along the river edge. With this much water just flowing out to sea it is easy to see how the agriculture industry has advanced in this area. They have a large system of channels and piping to control the delivery of water to anywhere it is needed.

Also using some of the water for a worthwhile cause is the local rum distillery! The Hoochery is situated out of town and is home to Australia's oldest home brewed rum. We arrived for a lunch time taste test and personally I was left a bit less than impressed. Set in and around the farm they also still grow their own sugar cane for use with the distillery and offer tours of the whole operation. Now after a taste of their rums I am sure they are an acquired taste. None really grabbed us and top it off with the worst cooked Barra lunch I have ever eaten (pretty sure it was some of that "cobbler" come catfish they all reckon is so good up this way!) and we were ready to head home after a short visit. Worth a look though as it has an incredible history and is well set up for tourists who are into that sort of thing. If you are not into breweries or wineries just go to the pub for lunch and a beer, you will enjoy it more!

Lake Argyle is a real must see I reckon for all Aussies travelling in this area. Built in 1975 as part of the North West irrigation project it is truly an awesome sight to see. The lake is just huge! As far as you can see there is water! Something like 25 times the size of Sydney Harbour! Yet the dam wall is only about 400m wide and looks about the size of the wall at Borumba down near Imbil! It provides for continuous water for all the down-stream farming to carry on without the threat of drought. My rantings about the fact that we don't seem to carry out these big nation building projects anymore and pipelines to the rest of Australia must have been boring Kylz to death but it seems a real shame to me that no Governments seem willing to commit to such projects. Imagine getting some of this water to the drought plagued farmers in SA or the bottom of WA!? Why just let it run to sea at an almost unimaginable rate. Surely moving water in those quantities would also be able to produce electricity as well?! Maybe I just don't understand the big picture, and I doubt I am the first person to make this observation!

Lake Argyle has a caravan park and a stunning pool area with one of those infinity edges that looks right out over the lake. After a quick look around the information centre we headed down across the dam wall and into the day picnic area for our lunch. Beautiful and shady we all enjoyed a bite to eat and then we headed back to continue our tour. We visited the Argyle Downs homestead, built in the 1880's, that belonged to one of the pioneering families from the area and had to be relocated before the dam filled. On our way home we stopped beside the road at the causeway over the dam spillway. The many dead, easily 1m+, barra on the bank reminded me of the couple of times I witnessed Lake Moondarra running over in Mount Isa. You could clearly see big barra in the very hard running water but getting them to take a lure was not proving easy for the few blokes who were trying along the rocky banks.

While in Kununurra we visited the celebrity tree park in town. Now Kylz was more than a bit excited when she found one she actually knew. Grant Denyer from the Sunrise morning show had been in town and planted a tree! Many of the others were a bit of a stretch to call celebrities but not everyone has the same tastes I spose! We managed to see a few nice boats launched here also at the boat ramp that leads to the Diversion Dam. This dam was built prior to the construction of Lake Argyle and the highway actually crosses the dam wall. Below the dam wall was also a popular fishing spot with supposedly big barra on offer. Unfortunately we were told it attracts a fair fine if caught in some parts of the place. Did not seem to bother the blokes we saw!? After this part of the tour the kids and I had had enough of the town and were ready to retire to our favourite part of Kununurra, the Ivanhoe Caravan Park pool! Kylz dropped us off as she was keen to visit the Zebra Rock Gallery. Zebra Rock as the name suggests is beautiful stone found only here in rare parts of the Kimberly and has different coloured layers from reddish browns to blacks and also creamy colours. I think she really enjoyed the tour and maybe even more so without the girls or me whinging around her?!

Chelsea was in Kununurra also for her 5th birthday. It was here that Kylz discovered we had left her cake tin in Katherine and with a mixed up batch of birthday cake ready to go we had to make a couple of quick mods to her baking dish to make sure we had a birthday cake ready for the next day's festivities! It all turned out fine though and Chels was very happy with all her little presents and especially the cake. She had plenty of phone calls and messages from friends and family to keep her busy as well. Her new pink fishing rod was a hit and she had plenty of onlookers as she practised her casting that afternoon.

While in Kununurra we had finally decided we would travel north to Wyndam and stay at Parry Farms. How much of the famous Gibb River Road we would be able to see was still a bit undecided. So with this plan in mind we were ready to make a start toward Wyndam. We had enjoyed our time in Kununurra and found a place that while being fairly remote still offered plenty of services and a friendly place to visit. The fact that the near perfect weather we had been experiencing seemed endless might have been a big part of that and we looked forward to more of it as we continued our travels around this beautiful Kimberly region.