LAKE ARGYLE

Since we were so close (70km) we thought we'd call into Lake Argyle for a couple of nights. The four hour Sunset Explorer lake cruise had been recommended by numerous people, tourists and locals alike. So for the bargain price of $90 we booked a seat for the following day. This gave us plenty of time for early morning walks to the Bluff and Ord River Gorge, then some chillax time in and around the infinity salt water pool (check out the photos and PegKezzy YouTube).

SUNSET EXPLORER CRUISE
We boarded the Kimberley Durack Catamaran and Skipper Graham took us on a 60km fact and wildlife filled journey around the islands, bays and inlets of Lake Argyle.
In the late 1886s, the Durack family drove on horseback into the area in search of pasture land from QLD estimating 6mths to get here, however it took over 2yrs!!

A descendant, Kimberley Durack had the vision to dam the Ord river, and capture the masses of water that fall during the wet, so that water would be in plentiful supply during the dry season. Ordinarily, as with nearly all the surrounding rivers, the Ord used to dry up or become stagnant during June-November.
They surrendered their lease of Argyle Station, a 1 million acre property for the purpose of the lake. They estimated five wet seasons to fill the lake, it only required two. That is a mammoth amount of water that falls during the wet, when you consider the size of the lake 55km x 40km. Yikes!

The township of Kununurra was built after the wall was erected, as the knowledge and confidence of plentiful water made the area more viable and sustainable for farming and industry.
Having said that, Argyle holds the equivalent volume of 84 sydney harbors. 1m of water released over the spillway would supply Perth for 5yrs! No wonder its classed as an inland sea!! The purpose of Argyle therefore is for water storage, to keep the diversion dam, Lake Kununurra, within 1cm of capacity, then gravity feeds water to the outlying areas for cropping. If they had no rain up here for five years, the amount in the Lake would be sufficient at its current release rate. But considering that is not likely, and last year during the big wet, over a 24 hr period the height of lake rose by 1.6m, that's equivalent of 17 Sydney harbors volume in 1 day! Water shortage is not really an issue.
Interestingly, the Dam Wall was built in 1969. 305m thick. 18 storeys high. North to south 55km, 40km West-East.
None of it is concrete. It has a clay core, permeable to water, which keeps it waterproof and more flexible, as it lies on halls creek fault line. If the wall were to break, Kununurra would be obliterated.
As a secondary benefit, the Dam also contributes to the HydroPower scheme, which powers 100km radius.
There has actually been an engineer from Europe who has a solution for piping the water from North to South, in a way that would be very cost effective, using a series of dams and hydro gravity fed pump stations. The only reason that hasn't occurred is Governmental. The Pollies won't make any money out of it. Once it's set up, the cost to the consumer would be negligible. And considering water is an essential part of human life which should be free anyway, you can see why this would never occur in our current system.

We watched the sun go down, and were one of the four people that were brave enough to swim in the lake, whilst holding our sunset beverage. The other 30 people missed out I reckon, the water was beautiful!

We are pleased we back tracked to experience Lake Argyle.

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