Vikings in Australia - Víkingar í Ástralíu

12^th September

We were lazy this morning. We took out our maps and discussed as to where we would go in the next couple of weeks as we need to get down to Alice Springs on the 1^st of October to meet up with Chris and Cathy. Once sorted, I went to check if I could get two new Coopers S/T tyres for the car. The front tyres are pretty worn by now after all the gravel tracks. The tyre place had them in stock and will fit them on Friday morning, before we leave this place.

Then I went back and picked up Sibba to go for a drive out to the Zebra Rock gallery. This is where the process the Zebra rock into saleable items. Zebra rock is around 600 million old sandstone layered rock that has stripes in it. There is only one place they mine it, i.e. here in Lake Argyle, during the dry season. This rock formation is not known to exist anywhere else in the world. So this stuff is rarer than diamonds! They had some pretty interesting things on sale, so we ended up buying a few things.

After that we went back to town and drove to the Kelly’s Knob lookout, which provides a good overview of Kununurra. I took a few photos there, but while there I heard this woman constantly talking. I thought it was the wind, carrying the sound from somewhere down below, until I realised later as we left the lookout, that wasn’t the case. The woman had gone down under the lookout and sat there with her mobile phone, chatting away. She was pretty difficult to spot as there was no path where she had gone!!

After that surprise, we went into the Mirima national park (Or Hidden Valley as it is called at times). It is a small National Park that borders the Kununurra community on the east side. There is no camping there, just walking tracks. We drove to the car park and I decided to do a walk to a lookout over Kununurra. Sibba decided to stay in the air-conditioned car, as it was around 40 degrees outside. The walk wasn’t long, only around 800 meters return, so I didn’t lose all that much weight! This park had been hit with bush fires, so it was partially burned. It has sandstone formations, that remind you of the Bungle Bungle, just mini versions! Very pretty landscape, especially the lookout over the park itself and Kununurra!

After that we went to Coles to buy some groceries and then back to camp. Tomorrow we plan to drive out early to the Keep River national park and do a couple of the walks there, to see some more rock art. Then it’s off to Lake Argyle to do a boat cruise on the lake until after sunset!