Day 38 Tuesday 15th

JD- I was nominated for the job of organising our tour of the Argyle Dam and Ord river. Difficult job considering we had collected 25 different brochures all pushing their respective wheel barrows.
On perusal of the Triple J Tours brochure, a single sentence finally cemented my decision. On the second page of the brochure it read "we have the fastest most powerful boats on the Ord" I picked up the phone and booked our tour.
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We were collected from the CV park at 11am for the 70km bus trip from Kununurra to our first stop the Durack Homestead. The Durack's were Irish immigrants who left Ireland in the potato famine to avoid starvation. They originally settled in NSW farming cattle. The attraction of large acres being made available in Kununurra they set about droving 7520 head overland to the Kimberley area. The trip took the Durack's over two years and on arrival their herd was less than half the number of what they started with. The homestead had been relocated, stone by stone, from its original location as when the lake was flooded it would have been 22m under water if it hadn't been. It seems the Durack's prospered as pioneers in the area but it was clearly no picnic, there were many headstones outside the homestead reading Durack 1 yrs old, Durack 14 yrs old etc. Most would have died from easily cured diseases, they simply would not have had access to medical supplies to treat the problem. Typical of most of the outback.
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Back on the bus, 2 min drive to the Lake Argyle Resort for a look around and also to see one of the worlds top 10 pools. (Not sure why that was part of the tour though cause we didn't have time and weren't allowed a swim.) The resort is actually the camp the workers were accommodated in during the dams construction. The infinity pool looks straight out over the lake, really was quite impressive but I couldn't get enthusiastic as I knew the next stop was the Argyle dam wall.
The Argyle dam is most impressive not from the point of view of it size as there are many dams in Tas that would be larger and far more imposing. But from the point of view of its simple design and modest size and then relate back that back to how much water it retains. The dam wall is 330m long and we were told that it is 330m wide at its base so it's basically a big pyramid. No concrete was used in its construction just an impervious clay core, lined with rock on both sides. The dam holds back the equivalent water of 20 Sydney Harbours. Total cost at the time of construction in 1972, 22 million! The Argyle dam in conjunction with the Diversion dam which was built 10 years prior gravity feeds irrigation water to 30 000 acres of farm land. Cost per megalitre to the farmer is $6
Off the bus then on to the most powerful boat on the Ord, Yeah baby!
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The boat is an open design, aluminium roof with seating for 50. It is powered by three 350hp Yamaha V8 engines which really make the boat sit up and take notice. Apparently the three outboards averaged 1 litre of fuel per kilometre ( only slightly worse that our van) Our skipper Jeff (who was also our bus driver and tour guide and I'm guessing was one of the J's in Triple J Tours, was as dry as hell but had a good sense of humour) was obviously very experienced in piloting the vessel. While he tried to convince the passengers he needed to use the power to negotiate the river I think he was a boy racer at heart!
We all really enjoyed the 55km fang down the river. It was a nice change to be "spoon fed" information on the area, its history, the wildlife and the people. Jeff was a facts and figures man, I won't bore you with figures like 16000tons of water per second over the Argyle spillway in the 2011 wet season or the fact that in the same year the lake rose 1.5m in one day which equates to enough water to supply Australia's current total usage for 7 years. Great day all in all!
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We were dropped back at the CV park around 6pm, in all the excitement we hadn't thought about dinner. I went for a quick ride into the town for chicken skewers and some salad. Back for a BBQ , debrief and bed. Great day!