Here We Go Again - Chapter 71 - Kununurra Day 2

The water fowl are noisy, early in the morning. They should stick to their more natural habitat of the water lilies in the lake, but they don’t. They find wandering between the vans seeking carion from the droppings of the residents a way to fill their gizzards.

Its Monday morning and as is the want of Property Portfolio Solutions we have a staff meeting at 9.00am Eastern Standard Time. Thats 7.00am here in Western Australia and all staff are required, all three of us. We discuss the upcoming webinar, the issues we do not want to see happen again and set parameters for the marketing campaign. 

We also talk about the stock situation. There are lots of potential properties available but our ethical standards will not allow us to entertain offering them to our clients. We are not a sales for sales sake type of business. We pride ourselves in understanding the wants of a client and then tailoring a solution as part of their journey to their goals.  

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Recent events in the industry have seen pressures placed on developers to produce stock but without forethought. Without it clients will be disappointed with the final result, and although while the developer will have moved on the client will be faced with a white elephant.

Robyn has researched and found the local Telstra “partner”. A local RetraVision business. It opens at 8.30am and we intend to be on their door step at that time.

The business is not hard to find. Everything is very well sign posted here in Kununurra plus the building itself is bright red. We are not the first ones here but soon enough we are directed to the person who deals with Telstra issues for this business.

Sitting in her alcove we unleash the saga on her. Apologetically she looks to assist us and sympathises at our service to date, laughing with us at the madness of the option of a prepaid SIM suggested to us by the online representative. Robyn is trying to run a business where the only contact other than via the internet, is that phone. She manages to cancel the original port request and have the invoice and payment for the failed attempt and commencement of the new plan reversed. Good start. Seeking to activate the SIM we already have “should take 24 hours”. If it is not working by this time tomorrow, drop back in and we will see what is going on.

Given the saga to date, we are happy with the plan, its potential execution and the even potential to have a working phone for the business. If we had not had two phones we would had been totally cut off from family and friends, not to mention any of those business type calls we may presently be missing.

Its 9.30am local time and we are back in the park, ready to start our wanderings. Today the plan was to drive to Wyndham and have a look. The young ranger we had met at and fished with at El Questro, Shaun, whose address we had used to “foil” the Western  Australian entrance examination, resides in Wyndham, although he spends much of his time at this time of the year in El Questro. 

Rose is still not ready to leave for the day, and although we had discussed it, Silver Leader does not seem interested in packing a fishing rod. Of course I have a light rod which lives in the Cruiser, along with an essentials backpack. Like the old scout leader I have been – I am prepared.

We really only have one day to “tour” here and we have planned to cram a lot in today. Wyndham is an hour away so 2 hours will be lost to driving. We have managed to fit in a staff meeting and a trip into town to look to sort out the phone. 

We await Rose.

The road to Wyndham passes some notorious landmarks. One hugely notable one is the turn off for the Gibb River Road. A pilgrimage right of passage for campers venturing into the Kimberly. 300 kilometres plus that do not interest us in the slightest other than to get to El Questro (and that part is beautifully bitumen paved). The rest it simply torture.

You hear stories of travels on this tyre eating, suspension-destroying, bull dust encrusted road. It is not a road for the faint hearted nor the ill prepared. At Lake Argyle we saw vans with twin spare tyres, or what used to be tyres, eaten down to a mangled mess of rubber in the place where the “emergency” replacements should have been. Such is the experience that can be this road.

As we pass the El Questro turn off we realise we are now travelling new territory for the Silver Schoolies Group. On the last trip we had ventured only to El Questro and then back, Sticking to the bitumen in our race around the country. Now as we race into Wyndham there is an expectation of new things to experience, new vistas to behold.

Wyndham is a small town on the mouth of five rivers. The port, the old town, is out on the river. They moved the main part of the town inland many years ago. The GPS has been set to the Five Rivers Lookout and we wind through Wyndham, seeing things we will need to come back and investigate more fully, and on past the hospital towards our first destination.

The things we have heard about the look out are much like trying to capture moments with a camera. You simply cannot do it justice. The place where the Ord, King, Pentecost, Durack and Forest Rivers meet, which can be seen from a hill between the town and port of Wyndham, I am sure you have heald before, have to be seen to be believed.

No, the rivers don’t all congregate into one great expanse in one spot, but certainly from this vantage point you can see each, wandering in from their individual source in the Kimberley, adding their volume to the others until the Ord consumes them all and continues into the sea. The view is such, its almost impossible to take photos for fear of missing some major part of the it.

When we arrive a wallaby is drinking from a bucket just behind the security rock wall. It os wary but we offer it no harm. It continues to drink but from a “safe” distance. Easily it is caught by cameras.

While we are marvelling in the beauty of the view other visitors come and go. A group of loud mouthed tourists arrive armed with their fur babies. The wallaby senses danger and moves on quickly, disappearing from view. Annoyed the tourists enquire where has the wallaby gone, why has it not stayed for them to see. They need only check their arms for the yapping nose makers they are carrying, one equipped with a bite retarding apparatus on its head, to see why.

They come, they pollute the place with their loudness and leave. Why 2 people need 4 dogs is beyond me. Are they not company enough for each other?

Next point of interest is the Crocodile Bakery. Down the winding track, back to the town we trek, in the comfort of the Cruiser of course, looking for this famed establishment. The “shopping centre” proper is of no joy. Wandering around we do find Shaun’s house and send him pictures to show we have “been there”. He sees something out of place from our photos and asks us to check. Its the census forms, tied to his front gate. Nothing to worry about. All else looks in place.

We find the big crocodile and take the obligatory pictures with it. There is a smaller version of this structure at Australia Zoo and it seems such a long time since we were there enjoying the Irwin experience.

Turning around we decide to traverse the “main street” and what do we find – The Crocodile Bakery. Its lunch time, or close enough. Sampling their wares is a must of course. There is a parking area at the side which offers some shade. We venture in. I bounce everyone when I misjudge a drain across the car park. If it had been perpendicular to our movement it would have been much less an issue, but it was at an angle and hitting it, even as slowly as I was, throws our occupants around the Cruiser.

Barramundi pies and other delights are purchased and consumed. There is a television with rolling pictures of the scenery and fish caught by the proprietors. Sure now about the decision not to pack a rod Silver Leader?

A quick piece of research suggests there is a statue park a couple of streets over. After renegotiating the drain out of the car park we go in search of it. What we find is impressive. A tribute to the Indigneous are a number of poignant statues of a family and animals. Walking around the park housing them you get a feeling of awe at how, between 60,000 and 80,000 years ago man began to carve a niche into this area. How they fought but learned to live with the land. 

A place for reflection.

I send the pictures of what we have seen of these statues to our daughter, a proud Wiradjuri woman. The return messages mirror our respect for the site. I talk to her about what the park and its contents made me feel and she agrees with me about the imagery of the struggle of our people.

One thing you see from the look out is the port. It begs to be investigated. Getting there is a challenge until you simply follow your nose, or in this case the road. Its a short jaunt around a hill and under the look out to be in the area you can see from above. 

From up there the plan is conceived. From down here the how is explained, the failures marked, especially with the demolishment of the hotel and the losing of the battle with Mother Nature the white man has never realised he can never win.

From the Indigneous contrasted with “civilisation”, Wyndham is a reminder of the plight of man.

There is more to see but little time, The Afghan Cemetery, for us only a sign as we pass. A place where every grave, points the deceased towards Mecca in a fitting tribute to their religious beliefs. It is apparent we can accede to the culture of others but put our own in the picture, it is sometimes a very different story.

We pull off the returning highway and in at an advisory board not far from the racecourse (where we had also pulled in as well, if only because the Wyndham Races are on shortly – their state of disrepair suggests Covid might have caused a cancellation already). Here we get a better view of where we have been and what we have missed. A measly couple of hours here was never going to be enough, nor was being here without the guidance of a local to truly visit and understand the area.

Heading off we have the great understanding, as we did many times on our original trip, returning here for a much greater analysis of what there is to experience is a MUST. Robyn and I would love to invoke the “there is no time like the present” ideal but with Covid engorged demand, the bookings Silver Leader has made, and the destination rather than the journey mentality we seem to have taken, possibilities are limited.

The Missing Link said it best, if we pull up in a spot and like it, we want the ability to stay for a while. Not have to rush off to the next place to see.. Like the theme song at the end of the Beverley Hillbillies TV show of the 1960’s and early 1970’s “They would like to thank you folks for kindly droppin in. Your all invited back next week to this locality to have a heaping helping of their hospitality – Hillbilly that is, Set a spell, take your shoes off, You all come back now you hear”. Unfortunately circumstances are such that this sort of mentality is not available. At least not to us, not at this time.

Its getting “late”. Not really, but an hours drive and other places to see on the plan for the day mean we have to be mindful of the sun’s positioning in the sky or one of Robyn’s greatest fears, driving in the dusk and the dark, would be realised. The time the temperature falls to a level where the bush begins to move without the discomfort of the beating sun. The time when all the potential roadkill victims congregate, ready to jump confronting a moving, highly lighted vehicle and being dazed into statufication.

Next stop is a place sign posted as we drove here this morning. Simply named the Grotto, we have very little expectation as to what we are about to experience. The turnoff suggests our destination is only a couple of kilometres from the highway. The parking area gives nothing away as to what the Grotto is. Outside the Cruiser there are sounds of frivolity. Hooping, hollering and the splash of water. There is a track and others are heading off in that direction. They quickly disappear.

Still sceptical, especially seeing none of us are shod for a bush like trek, we find a sign board. This board, and the view behind give a lot more knowledge about what is here and what to expect. The Grotto is a huge “gully”, carved out of the landscape by millions of years of water movement through imperfections in the rock. What we have now is a waterfall from the “normal land level” into a cavernous enclosure then on and down the gorge.

The walk looks somewhat treacherous but the sign board suggested steps had been carved or built into the trail to the bottom. 150 of them. We start down, taking our time. The girls hugging the cliff at times for more safety. The walk itself is filled with views of the surrounding landscape.

In the Grotto itself is a whole new world. Huge pool of cool water is trapped here. The hooping and hollering was not from small children but adults, bombing and using the ropes tied in the overhanging branches to swing out and enter the water. The heat build up from the walk to the Grotto is now reduced by sitting on a rock with your feet in the water.

Silver leader goes for a swim and finds the water very refreshing. We get talking to others lazing on the rocky bank watching small fish dart in and out of the  rocks in the clear water. They have done the Gibb River Road. One gentleman particularly has done it several times as part of the RFDS annual charity ride.

Words like madness and torture come too mind but then I think about the Hands Across the Water Charity Ride many of my friends do. 500 kilometres through Thailand in oppressive heat and humidity, then think the Gibb River Road in that perspective is a mere Sunday afternoon pedal. I will suggest to the organisers this might be the way to go given travelling to Thailand may be a distant thought.

Cooled off and time pressed we need to start the walk back to the Cruiser. Amazingly the walk up seems to take much less time than the walk down. We are though, in search of a drink when we get back into the car park. Its amazing that from the car park you can see across the gorge that is the Grotto, but if didnt know it was there you would miss it, as the expanded view of the Kimberley takes you attention away from that which is right in front of you, and we are less than 100 metres for the trail down.

Back past the Gibb River Road and El Questro turnoffs, we have seen so much today b ut in the immortal words of Tim Shaw – but wait there is more.

We had driven past the Bungle Bungles this time around. Whilst Robyn and I would easily spent another day or two exploring their grandeur, the others “had been there – done that”, and, given the pressures of the caravan park bookings we had been forced into, stopping and camping at Spring Creek in the free camp or just inside the National Park at the what could only be termed a caravan park was not really an option. 

There is however an alternative right here in Kununurra. An attraction called the Mini Bungles is a rock formation just out of town where tracks into the gorges take you on an adventure much like, but significantly shorter, than the real thing. When all said and done, this attraction is nothing like the “real thing” but it has its own beauty and allure making it well worth the time and effort to walk around.

With everything we have done already today we feel unable to walk to the lookout preferring to remain on a single level walkway traversing the gorge like valley. Every few metres there are signs talking about the flora. I grab pictures of them for later review.

At the Cruiser there is a large hole, possibly made by some soil slip in the cliff across the road. I get Rose to take a picture of me in it to show the proportion of what we are looking at. Again photographs struggling to give full picture to the grandeur you personally are seeing.

It had cost us $12 to enter and park here. Well worth the stipend, if only for the maintenance of the ablutions and the trails.

The sun is beginning to wane and we have one more “attraction” yet to experience.

Research of the area has suggested Kellys Knob might be a reasonable vantage point for some sunsetting photographs. Is it what. We arrive just as the sun is beginning to touch the horizon. Quickly we force ourselves to a vantage point for day closing shots. Then whilst realising the sunset is not just the main attraction start taking pictures of the rock formations and the trees surviving this harsh spot.

The red dirt and rock glows in the fading sunlight. The white of the stunted ghost gums contrasts the encroaching darkness. Perched in a spot where I have an uninterrupted view of the setting sun, Robyn joins me and we sit, enjoying the show Mother Nature is putting on, now and again stopping to take another shot of the ever changing vista.

Soon enough the sun has gone but the aura remains. Without artificial light returning to the Cruiser might be a little treacherous, so rather than taking in the entire show, we return to it for the short drive back to our vans.

Its been a long day, too long really. We tried but certainly did not do all the things we experienced the true justice they deserved. For millions of years Mother Nature has spent time shaping and nurturing the landscape. We spent less than a day taking in her handy work.

Dinner is quick and easy. Bed is not far behind. Sleep is easily found.