Lap Around Australia...Kununurra

Kununurra

We were pretty excited to be heading to Kununurra today. Finally we reach Western Australia! Also when we were here two years ago we really enjoyed the place. We'd booked in to the Discovery Park where we'd stayed last time. At least we know it has good facilities and good location with beautiful lake views.

On the drive from Timber Creek, we became more and more aware that we were entering Boab country. We love these magnificent "bottle trees" with their sometimes massive bases and leafless branches. They make the most wonderful silhouettes! Please pardon the many photos. Barb is obsessed! The weather is starting to get really hot too. It was 36 degrees today. We passed some mad fools cycling along the highway a long way from anywhere, with heavily laden pannier baskets hanging from their bikes. It looked like hard work.

We reached the Western Australian border before lunch and immediately were diverted in to the quarantine station. The people who work here are nice but very thorough and no-nonsense people. They checked both our fridges, car and all the food cupboards in the van for forbidden items such as fruit, veges, nuts and honey. We had been well aware of these restrictions and had discarded most of our fresh stuff back at Katherine. They did find a capillano honey container we forgot was there and a stray mandarin to confiscate. One got the impression that they were only happy if they took something off you.

We reached Kununurra and immediately went to Coles to re-stock a few fresh items and had lunch at a nice coffee shop as it was too early to check in to the campground. We were still a bit early when we finally arrived and the nice lady on Reception not only gave us a good easy to get into site, her husband also guided John in. (Barb's nerves were very grateful). It turns out there is nowhere in Kununurra that does fibreglass bodywork repairs on vans. John will put some clear plastic film on temporarily to weatherproof the ding on our van until we can find somewhere to repair it properly.

We drank copious amounts of fluids while setting up. Have I mentioned that it's hot here? We waiting until later in the afternoon to go exploring. We drove 12 Km out of town to Ivanhoe Crossing. There were quite a few people here to see the water rushing over the road and spillway. It's a favourite place for the local Salties (crocodiles) to lurk to catch fish. There were also a few local fishermen out braving the croc threat to catch some fish too.

We then drove up to Kelly's knob. It's a hill overlooking the township of Kununurra and a favourite place to view the sunset. When several tourist buses started arriving we decide to go back to our campsite and watch it from the lakeside instead with a drink in hand. Ahhh...that's a better way to do it. We are adjusting to the time difference. Another 90 minutes behind the Northern Territory. Although John and I both were awake at five as it was beginning to get light then.