14:29.382S  132:14.74E

 

Kununurra grew up because of the Ord River irrigation scheme.  The Ord River was dammed in the 70’s to form the gargantuan Lake Argyle, which would swallow up Sydney Harbour without trace.

 

We left Kununurra and Western Australia for Katherine in the Northern Territory.  Katherine Gorge National Park is beautiful (as are all the national parks).  We took a boat trip through the gorge and saw a freshwater crocodile, and a load of hatchlings, about 6” long, they are lovely at that age.  The craggy sides tower above the water, but in 1998 the katherine River flooded and engulfed the town and outlying stations.  The water level in the gorge was almost to the brim, it’s hard to imagine that volume of extra water, and during the cleanup operation the fire crew were chased out of Woollies by a big saltie!

 

We had 2 unexpected visitors last night.  The first was Bev, a grey nomad looking lady who arrived in her car to collect our money.  She was so drunk she could hardly speak, but joined us for a glass of wine, and told us she and her husband sold up, went travelling, and are now working in this campsite (a recurrent theme ) She obviously enjoys her work.  The second was a really lumpy frog (I hope not a cane toad, we have not yet learned to identify them) who dined with us.  While we were trying to enjoy our barbie and avoid the suicidal insect swarm attracted to our light, he was gobbling them up with his lightning tongue.  This morning was a scene of devastation, fly corpses thick on the ground, in the sinks, loos, everywhere a light had been on last night.