Sun 24 Aug 2013 – Lake Argyle Cruise and Swim

After eating our last bananas and a mandarin for breakfast, we headed off to the Border. It was good we had complied, as a very tough looking woman got in and searched our van from top to toe. Next it was full steam ahead to Lake Argyle. 

This is a man-made lake 70m x 40m - absolutely huge! They made it in 1989 by damming the Ord River for irrigation. However, it's been a bit of a white elephant so far because, even though there's great black soil here and now plenty of water, it's so remote that it costs too much to transport what they've grown or the bottom has fallen out of the market on the chosen crop. Now they're growing sandalwood, which is growing well and, as they only sell the concentrated oil, relatively cheap to transport.

Unfortunately, they can't even use the water for domestic use in Kununurra and nearby towns as an algae grows in the river below the dam, which they cannot get rid of or clean out of the water. They do make enough hydro-electricity to supply the area though.

On the way in, we stopped to visit an old homestead, now a folk museum. It was moved and rebuilt brick by brick before they flooded the land to make the Lake.

We arrived at Lake Argyle in time to go on an afternoon cruise on the lake and enjoyed it immensely. What a fantastic boat custom made for these trips and the Captain, Graham, knew the lake well. 

He also talked about the history of the land before it was flooded, geology of the area, diamond and zebra rock mining, and the effects on the lake and the wildlife resulting from the big wet in 2011.

He took us to see freshwater crocs, euros and water birds of many kinds, and he fed the fish so they would come up for us to see.

Archer fish

We had afternoon tea (even gluten free biscuits for me), a swim in the Lake and then drinks and a cheese platter, while we watched the sunset.

When we got back, we were able to sit outside our van and enjoy some live music while we ate our dinner.

We're now 2 hours behind  Sydney time. We were dismayed to find it's now dark at 5.30 pm - and full daylight at 5.30 am! It was 7.00 am to  7.00pm in N.T - much more convenient.