Thursday 16 August – Well, it is one year today since my breast cancer diagnosis – a new anniversary in my life!  Once again we were awake very early – 10 past 6 to be precise.  Perhaps it is the fact that we are now 2 hrs behind our ‘normal’ time and we still haven’t adjusted.  So we were up the street by about 9 o’clock to get a couple of things at the supermarket, we paid for another night here for tomorrow night and Grant went into the tyre place to see if he could arrange to swap the back tyres with one another (I’m not sure how that works, but apparently there is wear showing on one side or something).  As it turned out, they could do it straight away, so we had that done, too.

From there we took off for Lake Argyle – about 30km back towards N.T., then another 35 or so south to the lake.  The scenery became very rugged as we got closer to the lake, and very red rocks were a feature.  A few kilometres before we got to Lake Argyle, Grant suddenly pulled over and reversed a few metres as he had spotted a new specimen of wildlife.  Two in fact – two lovely big brolgas.  Just before we reached the caravan park where we had to pick up the tickets for our afternoon cruise, there was a turn off to the Durack Homestead.  The original site of the homestead was going to be flooded when the Ord River was dammed, so during the early 1970’s, steps were taken to remove it, rebuild it and thereby preserve a very important piece of outback history.

This magnificent homestead was originally built in 1895 by the Durack family on Argyle Downs Station (now mostly submerged by the lake). The famous pioneering Durack family home apparently became known far and wide as one of the social gathering places of the East Kimberley. Originally constructed of handcrafted limestone blocks with crushed termites mounds used as mortar, it was a magnificent building for its time.  The homestead was dismantled stone by stone with every stone coded in such a way so as to be able to be rebuilt with every stone back in its original position.

The result is excellent – a very well-presented representation of what the main homestead was like, and there are memorials along one fenceline to all the Duracks who lived out at the stations they owned.  There was also a bowerbird living in the hedge there, and we were lucky enough to get a bit of a look at it.

From there we went for a drive to a lookout over the dam and had a drive along the dam wall and down to the river banks to a lovely park where we sat and had a cuppa.

The Triple J cruise we were booked on was scheduled for 2.15, so we collected our tickets, and a bus picked up all those who were going on the tour and drove us to the jetty where we got onto a 35ft catamaran and were introduced to our Skipper Graham.  He turned out to be really great value – his knowledge of the dam, the lake and its construction was excellent. 

During the afternoon we saw lots of fresh water crocodiles, different birds and a small group of euros which Graham has been feeding recently with euro pellets from the vet.  They are living on one of the islands in this massive lake.  When he saw them early in the season he reckoned that they were looking to be in pretty poor condition, so he has taken them on as a project.  He showed us the northern extremity of the lake, then took us to the western, then the eastern shores.  The lake is 55km long and 40 km wide, and our cruise took us over 60 km in all.

Soon after we got under way we were given afternoon tea – tea or coffee, biscuits and cake, and the urn stayed on the whole time, so you could help yourself if you wanted more.  The scenery was quite beautiful, and Graham’s commentary was both informative and amusing.  As sunset approached he took us to a favourite spot to watch it, and served beer, wine and nibbles while we watched the sun go down.  He also invited anyone who wanted to, to go for a swim.  He put a ladder down at the back of the boat and about half of the people on the boat had a dip – mostly using noodles as the water was about 30 ft deep where we were.  Some stayed in for quite a while after the sun went down, even the little kids were in – but not Grant and definitely not me!!

We docked right on 6 o’clock so had three and three quarters of an hour out, which was pretty good.  We got back here to Kununurra a bit after 7, had tea, and that’s where we are at now.  Another lovely day.