Day 49
Kununurra - Lake Argyle
"Cascading down, golden rays above. Cascading down, right from far beyond...."
We had a great day in the glorious sunshine today! We got moving early and shopped, fueled, washed the Disco and packed up to leave Kununurra and drove a quick (by country standards) 76 kilometres to Lake Argyle and the Ord Dam where we are stopping tonight.
This was the start point on our canoe adventure and so it was good to get back here to take some pics of where the jump off point was (esp seeing as the camera was stuffed in a waterproof barrel at that point!).
Lake Argyle and the Ord Dam are huge and full of history - over 1million acres of original homestead owned by the Durack family lies a good 30 Metres under water now. The Duracks were a pioneering family of the Kimberley and their legacy lives on through countless namings ( the Durack river and the lake named after the homestead).
The original Argyle Downs homestead was relocated prior to the flooding of the valley floor and as it was a stone building, was painstakingly put back together piece by piece to be preserved on its current site above the dam. It's a beautiful homestead and now has its own bower bird family collecting all kinds of stuff in the front yard . They even bought the grave headstones and placed them in the yard too - not the graves though they remain under water!
From the homestead we drove across the dam wall and to the lookouts where you only get to see 5% of its entirety.
After a few pics of our jump off point it was back to the park and being another 30 degree plus day, another swim in their magnificent plunge pool . It drops off overlooking a spectacular vista of the dam and cost $2m to build and only part 1 is completed! It must be one of the most photographed pools around here that's for sure!
It's the place where we watched the sunset colours signal the end of the day (cover pic) before a quick dinner early so we could watch Origin 2 at the Inn. Of course the very much pro Queensland crowd left very dissapointed too!
We could easily stay another day or a week here with that pool - its so relaxing! We won't though as we need to keep moving. Tomorrow we head to the NT and leave the beautiful Kimberley region behind sadly (but we will definately be back - and you should come too!). We will also be leaving WA as well with which we have thoroughly enjoyed every adventure we've been on in the never ending sunshine here!