Today began about 5:30am local time, when Jesse and I went for a walk at sunrise, up the hill behind Lake Argyle Tourist Village. From the top we got some great views of the lake, the dam and the river in the early morning light.
Later in the morning we went on a tour of the Ord River, starting below the dam and going roughly halfway to Kununurra and back again. We had only been on the boat for two minutes when I spied a Black Bittern (lifer) on the bank (bitterns are secretive birds which inhabit reed beds, quite difficult to find and see) but it took off before I could get the camera ready - darn it! We meandered down the river past some huge rocky hills; the gorge is quite different from the one at Katherine, being wider and less precipitous, but spectacular nonetheless. Saw a Comb-crested Jacana (another lifer) on the way down, but not closely enough to really appreciate; but there were plenty of Rainbow Bee-eaters doing aerobatics out over the river. Jesse enjoyed the ride back upstream the most, with 700 horsepower snaking us around the bends uninterrupted, a roller coaster ride. He videoed the entire 25-minute return trip!
This afternoon the boys and I took our inflatable boat out on Lake Argyle (while Debbie put her feet up). We had a brief swim, the water wasn’t too cool, perhaps 23 degrees, but Jesse got cold pretty quickly. So we played ‘ships and cargo’ instead, Jesse as ship’s captain and Max and I as cargo and crane, loading and unloading onto a disused pontoon. (Playing pretend is one of the great chores of parenthood!) We finished up by rowing across the bay and back before the sun disappeared.
Then we splurged on dinner in the dining room, which made a nice change from rice and pasta. Jesse almost fell asleep at the table!