19 July 2015
Our next stop is the town of Kununurra is a short journey and once again we decided not to book a Caravan Park, some people had told us to try to get on the Showground here. We pulled up at the side of the Showground to see a big Closed sign! Helen frantically rang a few Caravan Parks, we have to tell them that we have a large caravan and we have been disappointed to not get a plot and this was the same. Everyone was full, but luckily we did find somewhere called Hidden Valley and if we get there in the next 15 minutes we could get a spot. Luckily we were only 5 mins away and arrived to be greeted by two very nice receptionists, one from Salford near Manchester. They had managed to give us two plots enabling us to drive through and position ourselves under some very needed shade. We didn't take up the two spots in the end and the shade was so welcome!
A trip to the nearest supermarket was needed as we had bare cupboards. Richard went off and left Helen to carry on with this BLOG!!
The next day our wedding anniversary, we treated ourselves to a tour around the area. We first went into the Mirrma National Park and did two walks. The views were once again stunning overlooking the town and way beyond. Richard didn't have a hat so the best thing to use was a canvas carrier bag we had in the car...Helen made him wear it! We had heard and seen photographs from other Nomads of an area where the Ord River is in full flow it looks like an old river crossing called the Ivanhoe Crossing but we wouldn't want to take our Ute over it.
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| Ivanhoe Crossing |
Our next 3 days is in Wyndham it's a relatively short drive, we could have done a trip from Kununurra but for us we wanted to see and stay. On arriving in Wyndham at 11:10 in the morning towing a caravan we were stopped by two very young police officers and Richard had to take a breath test, opposite the giant crocodile in the centre of Wyndham...
Wyndham is still a working port, shipping refined metals, quite small and the jetty was renewed a few years ago which the locals use regularly to fish from.
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| Wyndham Jetty |
We had a fantastic spot on the caravan park next to the oldest Boab tree in the area, these trees are just beautiful, many of them have no leaves or fruit, we soon realised that these ones have hardly any water. By fruit I mean they produce a nut which is inside a shell, some aboriginals carve the outer shell and sell them tourists... we heard about one man called Boab Bob but unfortunately didn't come across him. He seems to be based at Fitzroy Crossing and wanders through the caravan park selling is artwork. But, I digress.. Here in Wyndham is another famous landmark/view we had been told about called 5 Rivers lookout which is called The Bastion and it wasn't disappointing, we were once in awe of the view!
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| Our spot |
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| Our tree |
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| Our caravan to the right |
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| Five Rivers Lookout |
From Wyndham we were able to do some good sight seeing. We drove across the salt plains to find the prison tree which was used by the police officers to hold and rest their charges before getting to Wyndham. Along the way we spotted a sign pointing the way to view some Aboriginal Rockart. We had to do a bit of climbing in very hot sunshine to find this site but it was well worth it!
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| Prison tree |
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| We were the only people here! |
Another trip we wanted to do was a trip out to El Questro, another place we had been told about. It is a wilderness park and Homestead covering over one million acres. I suggest you google it and take a look at their website. We arrived at Emma Gorge information centre and paid our $12 each enabling us to travel through the area. We asked the young lady about Zebedee Springs where we really wanted to visit and yes you can, if you get a move on.
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| Beautiful palm trees |
As we had paid to be in the area we decided to go into the Township where we know there is caravan park, so some research to be done for future visits. Our journey took us over two water crossing we were very wary about the second one and decided to wait and watch someone take their 4wd across, all good! Whilst driving caught sight of what we thought was a Jabiru, so rare to see close up... we turned the Ute round and managed to get a few photographs of it before it walked away looking for his dinner. The caravan park was OK but we didn't like the idea of taking our caravan through the two river crossings and at a cost of $62 per night.
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| The Jabiru |
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| This driver waited for us to cross the river, very kind |
Time wasn't on our side as we really wanted to hike up Emma Gorge and we were approximately 20km away..... we made it in time and decided we could get into the Gorge have a swim and walk out again before it got dark. Our hike into the gorge was hard and if we were mountain goats it would have been a doddle. We could hear the sound of people having a nice time and swimming that encouraged us to get moving..... The sight of the waterhole was awesome.... we soon got organised and into the water.
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| Emma Gorge, bar and restaurant area |
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| Helen on our climb |
We had an amazing time in the waterhole.... so pleased we did the hike. Nearly 4km roundtrip. El Questro is an amazing area and if we managed to win the lotto we would definitely come back here and stay in the exclusive Homestead at $2899 per night!! per room!! OK its all inclusive!!
Next stop Bungle Bungles!!!!
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