Vikings in Australia - Víkingar í Ástralíu

13^th of September

Sibba woke up at sunrise to walk to the lake at the campsite to watch some of the birds that come around during the early morning. I joined her a little later on as I snoozed a bit longer! We saw a few water birds but also some crimson finches, both genders. These are small but beautiful birds. We also saw a comb-crested Jacana water bird.

Then it was off the Keep River national park.

We were half to Keep River national park, when we realised that it was on the Northern Territory side. This meant that we would have to leave Western Australia and return back across the border. WA has a very strict fruit fly border controls. No one is allowed to bring in any fruits, vegies, honey and even some nuts. The list of banned items is long, so one never knows what not to have in the car! To enforce this, on the highway they have border checks, whereby one has to stop and they search the car. I'm sure this is worse than the US Mexican border drug searches!! As almost every traveller buys their groceries in Woolies, Coles or IGA, it’s obvious that these chains are the biggest fruit fly carriers!

The irony is that Keep River national part is about 3km on the NT side. We didn’t want to have to throw all our groceries, which we had just bought the day before in Coles, Kununarra, so we decided to turn around. We headed back to camp and once there we took the fridge out and everything that might be edible and wasn’t in a tin! Then we went off again to Keep River. Once we arrived we checked the local information board to see what walks we could do. Unfortunately they have closed most of the walks to rock art sites so there are only nature walks. We did see one aboriginal thing on a hill. We didn’t know that the aborigines built any permanent structures, but they did! What we found on the hill was like a small shed built of stone. This was then covered with some straws. A hunter would hide inside and poke a stick through the roof. It was used to attract large birds of prey and once they came down they killed them.

We then went to Cockatoo lake and watched a few birds. Behind the National Park visitor centre was a nice garden with a few trees and a bunch of double barred finches flitting about. The birds on the lake were mostly water birds, like the Magpie Goose, Egrets, Pelicans and Plumed Whistling Ducks.

We then did another walk that started from the first campsite. This walk takes a loop around the sandstone formations. Keep River is sometimes also called mini Bungle Bungle. When we went for the almost hour long walk, it was around 40 degrees hot so I must say Sibba was a champion being able to do this walk! Me, I just sweat a bit more..

After Keep River, we headed back to WA to go to Lake Argyle. We came to the WA checkpoint and I of course stopped and turned the engine off. I jumped out of the car to open up the back etc for the quarantine inspector, when the quarantine officer stopped me and asked “Where have you come from”. I told him that we came from Kununurra and had just been to Keep River national park. He then said, that’s fine you can go on your way. No inspection required!! After us turning back to empty the car of all food!! At least they do have some common sense!.

When we arrived at the Lake Argyle resort, I went to pick up our tickets for the boat trip. The lady quickly found the envelope, but then told us that they would be showing a documentary on the Ord Dam building shortly. So we got our selves some food and drink and settled in front of the tv. The documentary was quite interesting to watch. It was a typical seventies TV program with old footage and the nasal commentary. Most interestingly, all the workers in the film that were shown, were mostly in shorts and no shirts. Along with other things, I'm pretty sure they would have failed to days OHS regulations pretty bad!! After the documentary, the bus arrived to take us to the pier, so we could board the big boat. Once aboard we were off on a cruise around the lake. Mind you, only a short cruise as the lake is so big. The lake averages around 20m in depth and the deepest point is around 44m. This depth is over the original Ord river channel where the narrowest point of the lake is. The cruise gave us enough sense for how big the lake is. They call it an inland sea, due to the fact in places on the lake you can’t see land!

We stopped in a bay to watch some Euros (Kangaroos). Initially the captain told us to to spot them. I'm sure if you are a good Euro spotter, you could claim to have an excellent Eurovision!! The captain had been coming to feed the Euros for a few weeks, but once we spotted them they didn't want to come. Thus we cruised around in the bay (Called Misery Bay!) for some time, until we returned to where the Euros were. This time around, they were waiting on the beach to be fed!! Thus the captain threw out some food pellets onto the beach and they gobbled it up. From there we returned back to the pier, but halfway there in the middle of the lake, the boat was stopped and the captain advised everyone to go out for a swim!. Which I promptly did. The captain served us some nibbles’, wine and beer as well. Of course I had a swim and a beer at the same time!!

As this was around sunset, where the sun was setting over the Coburn Ranges, it was simply fantastic. Once back ashore we drove to camp and then went out for dinner. I had booked a table at the Pumphouse restaurant. We arrived on time and had a great feed. This place is a re-decorated water pumping station, with the old pumps and equipment still there. The food was great and the place quite interesting. Old GEC pump motors and power boards. Just the right atmosphere for an old techie like me!!