Lake Argyle

We bid a fond farewell to Marty, Belinda, Charlotte and Meg as we all left Kununurra – they to tackle the Gibb River Road and us to head east towards Lake Argyle. We were hoping to check out the diamond mine and pocket a pink diamond or two, but there is a minimum age of 12 for the tours, so that counted us out. We had to satisfy ourselves with a tour of the lake instead.

It’s MASSIVE! Absolutely gobsmackingly huge and with an estimated 25 000 crocodiles in it! Only freshies, though so that’s ok. Lake Argyle is man-made and was created when they damned the Orr River. At the lookout in Wyndham the other day, it was very obvious. There were 4 mighty rivers and one smaller trickle – the trickle being the Orr. Prior to the creation of Lake Argyle, that would probably have been as impressive as the others (apparently in the wet, it still is!)

We stayed at the caravan park there, and spent a day pottering around and checking out the sights. We headed to the dam wall, and Angus wondered why we kept swearing all the time. We popped in the museum, which is the old Durack homestead. It would have been completely submerged in the lake if it hadn’t been moved brick by brick. And we stopped along the riverbed to look for barramundi and see if we could stumble over a diamond - no luck there..

We also did a sunset tour on Lake Argyle, which headed off at 2pm and returned at 6pm. We met another incredible single mother touring Australia with her daughter Chloe. I am constantly amazed at the strength of the people we meet, and the stories they have to tell. Chloe was 11 years old as well, and I had to take a photo to prove to Lexie that there ARE in fact girls her age travelling around Australia (it’s a commonly heard complaint in Bertha).

  

The tour was lovely. And there were no waves, so Dunc enjoyed it too! We were able to have a sunset swim, but Dunc wasn’t keen on getting in, and Lexie didn’t like that you couldn’t see the bottom. And she was very aware of the 25 000 crocodiles… That didn’t stop Angus and I though! He and Chloe had a ball jumping off the roof, and eventually Lexie even joined us too.