Creatures in the Day (Ord River Cruise)

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 Kimberland Waterfront Caravan Park, Kunnunara 

Photo of the day 

Today we had an Ord River tour booked. But we had a couple of hours in the morning free, so you can see from below that the Domestic Goddess returned briefly…

Organised campervan fridge - with labels! 

At 1130, we met the coach and were whisked off to Lake Argyle dam, which was created in the 70s to provide local irrigation. Various crops (cotton, sugar, rice, fruit especially melons) were tried over the years but most failed due to pests. These days there has been a resurgence of cotton crops - with the cotton genetically modified to withstand the pests. 

We stopped at the Durack Homestead - the Duracks were famous for bringing cattle to the Kimberly’s from Queensland in the 1880s. Significantly, their original homestead was to be submerged as part of Lake Argyle but they preserved the bricks prior to flooding, and then rebuilt the home with the original bricks in its current location. Pretty clever move judging by the number of tourists visiting! 
The re- located Durack Homestead 

This tree is everywhere up here. It’s a capoc tree. Remember those awful capoc pillows? Made from these trees! 

Next stop was the Argyle Dam - the dam/ lake is same size as 21 x Sydney Harbours and second biggest in-land water in Oz (any idea which is biggest?). 
One side of the dam - Lake Argyle 

Other side of the dam, which is the river we travelled down, ending at Kunnunara Lake 

The dam wall 

The best part of the day was that we got into a very cool boat and motored 55km down river. There were often stunning red rock gorges either side (1.6 billion years old) as well as beautiful lush creeks. The driver would chug along slowly to show us things, but then would massively speed up the boat, which he called ‘planing’, meaning skimming along the surface. Fun!


Stunning reflections

Where we had afternoon tea - this rock is called Digger Rock. 

More reflections in the creek 


But the highlight was all the creatures! In contrast to last night (when we knew they were there but couldn’t see them), we actually saw a huge array of crocs (“freshies”), all sorts of birds (white belly sea eagles, snake-necked birds, Jesus birds, pelicans, a jabiru, cormorants, night heron, kingfishers, and more), green ant nests, basket-weaving spiders, wild cows, a bush wallaby and baby, thousands of bats, and more that I have forgotten. 

An unusually visible freshie (most are very tricky to spot as they look just like logs - a ‘logadile’)

Pelicans love hanging out in trees 

Spot the wallaby - and even more challenging - spot the baby wallaby!

Thousands of smelly fruit bats. Very important for spreading seeds 

Just managed to jag this photo of the jabiru 

The funniest moments were when some of the Jesus birds (long legs - look like they are walking on water) were racing the boat - going flat out with their long legs flapping, and when a cormorant was trying to eat a fish that was too big for it. The most amazing moment for me was spotting the jabiru bird (some sort of stork) which I cannot wait to try and make in glass :-)  Apparently quite rare to see one. 

Altogether a very special tour. And of course we completed this day with a typical Kimberly sunset - taking them for granted now! 




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