TOP END REPORT: Water, Rocks and Weather

Greetings from the beautiful Kimberley region. Over the last 2 weeks we have travelled from Darwin in the Northern Territory, across the WA border and to the eastern edge of the Kimberley. We are currently camped at the Diggers Rest Homestead. As well as being a lovely oasis and a working station, Diggers Rest has achieved some renown as the place where the cast and crew of the movie Australia stayed through much of the filming and also the location of all the cattle mustering scenes. The other really amazing thing about Diggers Rest is we actually get a signal (its approx 40 kms from Wyndham) – so a bit of blogging seemed mandatory.

We’ve spent the last week and a bit between Lake Argyle and Kununurra – both critical parts of the Ord River Irrigation Scheme. Lake Argyle is an enormous man-made lake, which, on average, holds the equivalent of 18 Sydney Harbours. Each year the lake is refreshed during the wet season by the tremendous flows of the Ord River. (Did you know that at its peak, the Ord River is the fastest flowing river in the world with the equivalent of the entire city of Melbourne’s water supply flowing past you every 17 seconds?) The dam that holds back the thundering Ord, then releases sufficient water into the upper Ord throughout the year to keep Lake Kununurra, further upstream, full. From Lake Kununurra a gravity-fed irrigation system feeds water to the surrounding agricultural land. Quite cunning!

The lake itself is absolutely beautiful. It doesn’t really feel as huge as it is because the water has formed a number of smaller bays. We went on a boat cruise in the lake and were able to get a better feeling for its magnitude. This huge, permanent waterhole has attracted masses of bird and animal life – most notably 12,000 fresh water crocodiles. The fresh water ones aren’t supposed to hurt you, but they look menacing all the same.

The dam that holds back this inland sea is remarkably small and was quite an engineering feat for its day – 1974. We saw a documentary on the making of the dam and the most striking thing for me was the complete lack of OH&S in those days. The workers were driving machinery in the blazing sun in just those tiny shorts that only an Australian male would ever wear – no shirt, no hard hat. They blasted twice and each time was the biggest non-nuclear explosion ever on Australian soil – and each time they lit the fuse with a cigarette. How times have changed in 36 years.

The primary crop now being grown in the irrigation area is Indian Sandalwood – used in high quality perfumes and also in all those joss sticks you see in absolutely every Hindu or Buddhist temple. Apparently they tried cotton – didn’t work. Then they tried sugar cane – couldn’t get the economies of scale and eventually CSR pulled out. Then they tried rice – the geese ate all the rice before they could harvest. Finally they have settled on Sandalwood which takes 15 years to reach maturity – so here’s hoping this crop proves successful!

Kununurra itself is not a particularly exciting place – but it’s on the edge of all kinds of “must do” stuff. We were very lucky to arrive in Kununurra during the Ord River Muster, which is an annual festival celebrating the culture of the area. We took full advantage of the programs being offered and went on a special guided walk in Hidden Valley, which is fondly known as the mini-Bungle Bungles, saw an aboriginal Corroboree (more on this later) and had a tour of the Argyle Diamond Mine. We had expected that we would be unable to visit the mine because outside the festival period the only way you can see it is by a helicopter tour that costs over $500 – too rich for our blood. But the festival offered a much cheaper option and we jumped at it.

As it turns out diamond mining isn’t all that different from any other kind of mining – the notable difference being in the level of security. We were constantly being warned not to touch anything, not to pick up any rocks, not to bend over to tie our shoelaces – or we risked a full cavity search. Apparently the security officers within the mine have far greater powers than the police.

I’d no idea but apparently the Argyle Diamond Mine is the largest in the world. The story of the discovery of the mine is full of intrigue. One mining company (let’s say company A) purchased the lease in the hope that they would find uranium. They hired another mining company (company B) to run geological testing in the area. Company B didn’t find any uranium, but they did discover diamonds and kept this discovery hush hush. Word leaked that there might be diamonds in the Kimberley, so company B set up a bogus operation well to the west of the location where they had actually found the diamonds to throw everyone off the scent. It must have worked because, having found no uranium, company A did not renew the lease, allowing company B to pounce on what turned out to be the richest pipe of diamonds yet discovered. It’s all now a Rio Tinto operation.

We’ve been a bit unlucky with the weather. This part of the north had a fairly ordinary wet season (unlike the huge rains enjoyed in Queensland, which stopped our progress through the centre). But to make up for this the area from the Kimberley to Darwin has been receiving unusual rains and humidity in May, which is supposed to be the start of the Dry. It’s been unbearably hot and sticky – even the locals start to complain when the humidity is over 90%. But more significant has been the effect on the roads. Many of the roads we want to travel are closed and it’s unsure when they will reopen. We met a couple who had been up to Kalumburu (one of the places in our plan which is a remote aboriginal community on the far north coast of WA) and had been stranded for 10 days before abandoning their car and escaping on the mail plane. Apparently there were still plenty of people left stranded, including people who had tried to escape in their cars and were now stranded in the middle of nowhere, surviving on food and water drops by the government. Having said that, the weather seems to have turned today and apparently the Dry is reaching the Kimberley – so perhaps we will yet be able to proceed as planned without mishap. Here’s hoping.

I’m tired today for some unknown reason – all this not working for a living can become quite exhausting. (I really mean that by the way – some days I miss the adrenaline.) I was going to regale you with stories of grey nomads and indigenous Australians – but this seems like a long blog already and I think I need a nap. So I will hand over to the budding grey nomad himself and save any other observations for a future blog.

It’s 9 months today since we left Melbourne and it seems to have gone so quickly. The day we left a guy came over to have a look at the camper; Mark from Abbotsford who was planning a trip and was really impressed with our Kimberley camper. One morning at our camp in Kununurra last week this guy comes over and it’s Mark - just happened to be in the same Park. We met his lovely family and saw them off in their new Kimberley Camper to Darwin, talk about a coincidence.

Golf report, have not much to say here as not many courses up here. In fact 3 Kununurra, Derby and Broome are the only options. Seems that I will get to play in Broome. For those non golfers each week after we toil our Saturday round we read the Sunday papers looking for our names in the winners section and then read of our mates at other courses and see how they went. Up in the Kimberley the results are broadcast on the ABC golf show where they talk with reps from each club, quite informative and good to hear the locals, not sure it will catch on down south though.