Around Oz the First Time - Chapter 30 - Lake Argyle Day 2

I wake up feeling a little second hand, not from a hangover but from the effects of my body fighting. There is a continual fight against the Epstein Barr virus (glandular fever for those not medically oriented) which I succumbed to many years ago. Being self-employed, one simply fought through it or starved. The long term result is a constant battle with costa chondritis, which manifests itself with rib cartilage pain and dislocation of them as well as pain similar to my wife walking on my chest with stilettos on, or, as it is today days where everything feels like lead and ankles and knees ache.

On days like today its best to simply veg in front of the TV and sleep it off. Having said that we are cruising today – the afternoon Lake Argyle Cruise. I suspect I will not swim but simply sit back and enjoy the view. I have charged up the phone so there will be limitless potential shot taking to be had.

I did allow myself a toilet break at 6.00am, took a picture of the streetscape in the park adjacent to our vans, posted it on Facebook, snapped a couple of shots of a monster van with a Dodge Ramm and sent it to the Missing Link who will probably need one now he has all those grandchildren to transport around, and then went back to bed. I rose from time to time, wandered around to the Silver Leader’s van where we discussed days ahead and whether booking was required. He advised that the upside-down falls overnight tour out of Derby was booked out for the period we wanted to do it, so we booked in for a day trip out of Broome, comfortably inside the time we will be there. They will pick us up at 5.30am from our vans.

Morning Tea and Forbsy breaks out the Salted Caramel Tim Tams. The crackle of the packaging brings everyone to the table to sample them. Even Robyn takes a break and joins us. Even though we might be on tour, Robyn is still running a fledgling business from the van. She is managing to put together training courses, marketing material and even assisting various clients here and overseas, who have no idea where she might be responding from. We had a satellite dish fitted to the van but to date have only had to use it once as the chips in our laptops seem to have worked fine so far.

My part in the business is basically to keep out of here way but I do handle the video production side, creating video content from her blogs. Our time in Dale Beaumont’s Business Blueprint regime has shown us more than one way to create effective, low or no cost marketing material and have it out there doing its job. Robyn is just finishing a blog that I will be converting to a video shortly (it doesn’t take much time) after our marketing team ensure the wording is such, that it picks up the right algorithms in Facebook and Google etc. It is all very important otherwise you are simply firing your marketing dollar into the dark so to speak.

She had a meeting this morning with the team and it would seem they want her to concentrate on the personalised video marketing. Find a topic close to the heart of the business, food labelling for small and medium sized food manufacturers, get in front of a camera and simply talk about it, showing off her expertise on the subject in which she has so much knowledge. She also of course has the answer to much of their issues in the form of the courses she has created. It’s all in her catch phrase really – “Making food labelling simple for YOU”.

To nap, or not to nap, that is the question. If I put my head down like I did yesterday I might sleep through the cruise, and we wouldn’t want that. Having succumbed to the tiredness in the early afternoon I woke to the darkness of dinner time. Had some lovely lamb chops and peas and corns and simply went back to bed. This tired, battered old body obviously needed it, and according to the signs, might still require much more of it.

The cruise on Lake Argyle was different to the Yellow River cruise and the Katherine Gorge cruise but that in no means its any less or more spectacular. Starting when the sun is just over the yard arm so to speak, the Kimberly offers the usual red vistas, contrasted by the blue water below and blue sky above, which in itself is amazing. It’s the changes in the colours of the vistas much like the other cruises, but again different to the other cruises which take your breath away.

We start, not just with the bus trip to the boat, but an extensive video presentation of the construction of the dam. is explained in the [Course Name] which is part of the [Basic/Advanced] he bus, a large vehicle, because of the changeover between the morning/lunch tour and the afternoon cruise, we go the long way which means up and down the approach road to the dam wall. The bus is long and the road windy, our bus driver tells us is an incident where an over-eager Nomad with caravan attached wedges his vehicle the van and bus together on one of these corners causing a blockage which took not only 3 hours to clear but wrote off the van and the vehicle. We then, in very low gear, inch down the gravel track to the transfer point.

The cruise starts with a meander past the dam wall, such a small structure for the impoundment of such a large body of water. There is a concrete box here that sticks out of the water about the size of a six storey building, its actual size is more like 18 storeys, with most of it being submerged, and is the intake for the hydroelectric and diversion pumps.

The cruise meanders from here to there, our guide nattering away about this and that including the history of the Durack family whose vision made this all possible. Everywhere you look, and it has to be said we only cover a very small percentage of this amazing impoundment, there are different things to see. The vistas change colour almost before your eyes. Freshwater crocodiles can be seen from time to time. One even cuts our path at one stage, mouth agape, either in anger or simply cooling itself down as it swims across the lake.

We have seen from the infinity pool what seems to be marker buoys in the water which move with the wind. I ask our guide and he laughs and points towards a pelican – oh you mean those. Whilst there are buoys in the lake, they are fixed moorings, and would not be able to “move”. We both chuckle as do Forbsy and I when I relate the story to him on return to my seat. You are allowed to move around the boat whilst in motion to get the best vantage point for that all elusive snap, but there are so many to take it’s difficult to work out where the “best spot” is.

I resort to taking videos, rather than photos in a better attempt to capture the grandeur. We stop at a spot where you can see a long way to the south. Our guide suggests that’s the Argyle Diamond mine, off in the distance, a distance that make the horizon blurred between the lake and the sky, an infinity pool of epic proportions. He regales the ladies with stories of the different types of diamonds mined there and the value they attained when sold – mind boggling.

A stop at one of the larger islands and wallaroos bound over to the boat, not to be fed, but just inquisitive. Everyone gets pictures, lots of pictures. I suspect the one most snapped is the one with the head of the large joey looking out from its pouch, I certainly snapped it.

At another spot we hare treated to a fish feeding frenzy as our guide throws bread into the water to have it attacked by catfish, grunter and archer fish. One archer fish shows its prowess by squirting water at the sign on the side of the boat. Still no illusive barramundi but our guide talks of unsuccessful farming of this iconic fish and of monster of the deep caught and photographed to prove they exist. Funny how the angler in all the photos looks decidedly like our guide.

One picture in particular shows him struggling to hold a 17kg catfish. He muses that in the world of catfish of this type this is only a tiddler, they grow to over 40kg and are the only commercially caught fish in the lake. The three anglers in our group (as I suspect the Missing Link might as well) would love to get into a fight with one of those. The guide goes on to suggest most of the general fish served in the resort are catfish unless specified as something else.

One thing unique to this cruise as opposed to the other cruises so far is the ability to have a swim in the Lake. Freshy’s tend not to attack humans unless provoked and there are very few Salty’s in the Lake (or so we are told). Having said that the swimming “hole” is decidedly a long way from any bank as we are moored onto a buoy in the middle. I am still not feeling 100% so I do not join the noodlers frolicking at the back of the boat. I manage to capture Forbsy’s entry into the water in super slow motion on the camera which gives a great effect.

Here people are allowed to jump, dive and bomb from the roof of the boat. Bombing techniques could use a little tuition I muse but the odd one wets the back of the boat. I decide to get into position and try to get some more super slow-motion videos of jumpers off the roof. One older gentleman, still a kid like me to heart” does a lovely swan dive, converts it to a “horsey” which I capture, then egged on by his wife of all people, does it again so I get an even better video.

I manage to get a young boy jumping from the top in super slow motion past the setting sun, then his dad wants a joint shot which I am happy to produce. When I get back into service, I send them to the mum who is grateful.

With the sun setting the vista changes and if anything becomes even more spectacular. Videos, photos and panoramas become the order of the day, all filmed from the front of the boat. A green underwater light from the bow of the boat enhance shots even more as we motor into the darkness and return to shore.

With the change in time zones, although it is only 6.00pm local time, no one is feeling up to cooking, for us it would mean defrosting as well, so we decide on a bistro meal. Robyn goes the Butter Chicken special and I the Schnitzel standard. There is entertainment, a soloist is keeping the local amused with his renditions of various songs, some he has written himself and others which he has taken well known songs and re-written the lyrics. Cane toads cop an absolute hiding to the tune of the Rolling Stones, Angie.

Retiring to the Silver Leader beer garden we break out some chocolate, Top Deck and Peppermint, and muse abut the coming events and then drift off to bed.