Sunday July 3rd Lake Argyle

We left quite early as we’d heard that Lake Argyle CP didn’t take bookings and it's first come best dressed. For the last couple of days, we’d been reducing our supplies of fresh fruit and vegetables as the Quarantine Station operates 24 hours each day and there's a huge fine for taking in forbidden produce. We gathered everything on the banned list including honey and walnuts. 

WA quarantine station

I'd bought some roasted almonds from home and hoped that they were OK. We handed over everything to the inspector who cleared the almonds and walnuts. He was very thorough when he checked out the packaged walnuts for coddling moth.  As we left the station, he reminded us to turn back our clocks.

The Kimberley began to impress us as we left Timber Creek and headed to the WA/NT border. I purchased a small book published by Dept of Environment and Conservation WA titled ‘Geology & Landforms of the Kimberley’. I studied Geography in high school during Intermediate (current Year 10) and enjoyed learning about different features of the landscape but I’ve forgotten some of it – it was 45 years ago.

The Kimberley Plateau is up to 250 million years old. Sandstone escarpments spied from a distance were very impressive as we travelled closer. So many photo opportunities!  The colours and cross-bedding (hard to describe but check out the photos) are features of this landscape. Vast valleys, escarpments, pandanas palms, boab trees and other flora provide plenty of interest as we head further into WA.

We first spotted Lake Argyle in a valley. The lake is not a natural formation; it was created in late 1960s and completed in early 1970s. It is bigger than Sydney Harbour. At the spillway on the Roper River just down from the dam, enough water passes through every minute to service Adelaide for 1 day!!!!! Much of this fresh water goes out to sea.

Lake Argyle

Some of the locals told Robert that they were worried about the amount of water that has to let out before the next wet and the consequences of too much water. Kununurra (some 70 km from the lake) was built to service the dam during construction and it currently has a population of 6000. If the dam wall were to break, it would be the end of Kununurra.

Arriving at the caravan park, we noticed plenty of empty powered sites and we booked one for 3 nights. The CP is grassed in many places and shady trees dot the park in most places. Our site has shade and is right by the check-in lane so Robert's happy as he can watch the coming and going of campers.

spillway on Roper River down from Lake Argyle

The CP sells some fresh fruit and some vegetables but not fresh bread or milk. Very nice fruit and veg too.

Robert decided to check out the pool – another one that is too cold (21.5 degrees). It's an amazing pool – see photos. 

swimming pool at Lake Argyle CP

It didn’t take long to get dark with the time change. Lights on at 5:30 p.m. We felt like we’d been up for ages. There’s no access to mobile phones or internet here unless we pay in the reception area so we’ll wait until we get to Kununurra. A public phone is located just down from us if we need it.

Sight-seeing tomorrow.