Days 46 & 47
Kununurra - Lake Aygyle Dam lookout - Upper Ord River - Kununurra
"Rollin, Rollin, Rollin on the river......"
We are all very tired CMJs tonight ! It's been a massive couple of days for us as you've read but today we are especially tired.
We've just canoed 32 kilometres along the Upper Ord River, seeing some spectacular scenery over the past 2 days with full camping equipment aboard!
We were picked up from Kununurra yesterday at 6.15am and we drove 75ks to the Lake Argyle lookout. Wow- stunning view and the Lake is just huge and you only get to see 5% of it from the lookout. We then drove down and across the Dam wall to the picnic area just below it which was our launching spot.
We had 2 canoes and it was Cayden and Corinne paired in the speedy green machine and Cobes, Cayla and I in the red (Cayla said pink) chugging vehicle.
We strapped in eskys, sleeping mats,tents and drums of clothes and sleeping gear, climbed aboard, showed the tour operator that we were all fit and able to command our vessels and were underway down the Ord for our 23 k first day hit out.
The first 5 k's were a leisurely paddle as you have the current from the hydro dam under the wall slowly assisting you as you paddle and then it ramps up to what was explained to us as "rapids". Now I've done a fair bit of white water rafting and so I had my boat trained for what I (and Corinne too) was expecting to be some heavy going! We heard stories of capsizing during our journey briefing.
Well that all turned out to be nothing - little more than fast moving water - no rapids, no sharp turns and submerged obstacles to negotiate - bummer !!
We paddled on and stopped for lunch at a sandy beach about half way into our trip. We had 2 other boats with us on our journey - 2 ladies from Sydney and 2 boys from Holland. Both other boats were doing the full 3 day 55k paddle.
After lunch we canoed through the magnificent Carr-Boyd Gorge complete with crocodiles (we saw 5 all up), a huge amount of birdlife and fish and arrived at our camp - Cooliman Camp for the night at about 4pm - 23ks of hard paddling done for the day.
We arrived to no gas in the bottle - the previous tennants the night before used it all ! The other ladies were very concerned as to what would become of them and so I rallied the firewood gatherers to work so that we had enough to see us through for cooking and for entertainment before the dark set in. Luckily there was a decent supply!
We then set up our tents on raised platforms and cooked our sausages on the fire. We lashed out with the catering as you can tell!
The Dutch boys managed to catch a fish - a sooty grunter and basically had no idea how to prepare and cook it so I had an eager audience of 5 ( 3x CMJ's and 2 backpackers from Holland) all watching me clean the fish ready for cooking . The kids especially loved the guts and head removal !! They has even packed lemon so it cooked up a treat on the fireplace.
We all crashed early after a tiring day knowing we had a shorter paddle the next day and that we'd all be up with the birds.
We were up by 6am this morning - it was light and the birds were singing loudly overhead ! We got another fire going and after breakfast, packed up our gear and lashed it back into our boats ready for the 9k journey today.
Because today was short, we got to explore a bit. We paddled into a creek as far as we could and walked out to a magnificent waterfall about 60m high complete with a deep plunge pool at the bottom. Cayla and I swam out to the falls which were very cold compared to the pool. After an hour we hiked back to the boats and continued the journey stopping at Sandy Creek for lunch where we stopped and relaxed for some time.
It was about a 40 minute paddle after lunch to the Day 2 camp - Stonewall - and our pick up point.
We explored the camp after securing the boats and saw the massive boab tree that one tent site sits under.
We got picked up at about 4.15 and as we were unloading our canoes into the boat for the trip back, I slipped in the mud and ended up in the drink for one last time - much to everyones laughter! We all enjoyed a sunset cruise back into Kununurra complete with soft drinks and were dropped off the boat almost at our van door.
Tomorrow will be a more relaxed day. We are driving into Wyndham and seeing some other Kununurra sights we have yet to view on what will be our last day here.