25 February 2000
Had a good look round before leaving Wyndham Port (the most northerly town and safe harbour in WA) this morning. Hope the guy at the hotel got the money for our room (went to pay bill when leaving - approx 7:45 a.m. - but nobody around. Looked everywhere; called out everywhere, but no response. Finally left money under under keytag in room, locked room and left. Returned later to make sure they had received money but still no-one around. Left. Hope they got it).
Back in Wyndham went up to Five Rivers Lookout. Very high. Could see for miles. Saw vast areas of tidal mud flats cut with deeper channels stretching away through Cambridge Gulf towards the open sea 50+ kms away. Did not realize gulf area and seaways so vast. Also saw a huge boab (baobab) tree reputed to be 1,500-2,000 years old. Don't know whether these boabs are the same as the bottle trees we saw over in central and western Queensland. They look similar, but where the bottle trees have clean straight trunks and compact round heads, the boabs have trunks which vary in shape, sometimes branch very low, and have more open (and lower) foliage. Perhaps they are different species of the same genus.
Unfortunately due to recent rains King River Road was closed and we could not get out to aboriginal rock paintings, nor "prisoner tree" - giant boab which used to be used by police as a lockup. For the same reason we could not get out to Marlgu Billabong to see the wildlife there (we got to within about a kilometre but were turned back by a bog we thought demanded discretion rather than valour). There were another couple of places we wanted to see but were stopped by closed roads and/or dangerous conditions. We did however see the Grotto, a waterfall with an estimated 100 metre drop. We saw it from the top, disappearing into a gorge. Quite spectacular, and probably only runs in the wet season. So I suppose while it is disappointing not to see come of the attractions because of the wet season, you do see others which you may not see in the dry season.
On getting back to Kununurra had some lunch and then, weather improving to broken cloud, partial blue skies and occasional sunshine, returned to Lake Argyle area where we were yesterday. Conditions today much improved and we were able to have a good look round, visiting a number of lookouts, etc. Lake Argyle is the largest constructed lake in the southern hemisphere. It was made by damming the Ord River, and supplies water to the large Ord River Project. I don't have any info on its area or capacity as the information boards had all been defaced.
On the way back to Kununurra kept watching storm cloud build-up to the north-west (Wyndham area), but decided it would not affect our plans as tomorrow we will be travelling south east (to Hall's Creek and Fitzroy Crossing areas) so was surprised to hear on returning to motel that road was cut at Fitzroy Crossing. Have not been able to confirm this, but have confirmed that river is over road there but traffic proceeding slowly through. Will check in the morning before we leave.