Mornington Station Holiday August 2000
Section Five - Kununurra to Kununurra - Lake Argyle, Bungle Bungles

Thurs
Next morning I take the sub frame off the bike and let the welder go to work. $10 bargain! I also check things over. Reassemble and go back and order the perilli tyre. It will be here Monday so I have some time to fill in. A R11GS and a F650 are in camp, with tourateck case, must be Germans. They return and we talk - they work for bmw as motor cycle development engineers. They came up throughout bits of NSW and Qld, bad experience with sand and buried rocks. They have done the adventure course in Germany. But they are not use to travelling for time and distance, a 2 day course does not prepare you for months on the road. They ask why do I ride a bm? Because I can get parts in 2 days.. they say marketing does not know this!
Sleep- interrupted by a guitar player and band singer around midnight. Some other person has a radio on. The singer/guitar player looks like he is travelling in a camera, will check for it wherever I camp.

Fri
Late Pack. Leave 10.10 see Germans in town and say good bye, they are booking a 4wd in derby for the Gibb river road, the road is too rough for them. Bad experiences can turn you off easier bits because of their reputation, I've told them they should go in on the bikes to El Questro. Book Cruise for tomorrow goes off to Lake Argyle. On the way out is some burnt scrub with some of the upper tree leaves turned brown making some impression on my mind with the unburnt palms around the burnt areas... Like a water fall a photo only shows the water falling, but not the sound nor the smells and it captures a small fragment in time, you have to be there to experience it , not just look at it. And we all experience different things, even at the same time and place. I can not photo it.
Lake Argyle is a disappointment at the camp ground/pub. The campground has few trees and most of these are taken and even some of these have little shade. As I am staying 2 nights this is important. Oh well the amenities block is clean, and the pub is just across the road.

Sat
The next morning I walk through to a reconstruction of the old homestead now under lake argyle. The reconstruction uses some of the old homestead bits, but the water came up faster than they thought. They thought they had a week with water 1 km away, woke the next morning to find the water lapping at the front door. I walk back to the camp site, shower and get ready for the sunset cruise.
The cruise is ok, but this would be better appreciated from the air, only then you would get to see the size of this artificial inland sea. There is only one launching ramp into the lake, and at the moment only one yacht and 4 cruise boats, and a few tinnies. Some of the islands have wild life trapped on it, the roos supplement their diet by the things washed up. The lake water level rises in the wet, and falls in the dry. They try to keep the water level low enough to take the maximum water coming from a one in 150 year wet. That way they should never overflow, but they run the risk of running out of water in consecutive dry years.

Sun
Back to Kununurra for the tyre, and a look around. I go to the camp ground and check that the madman is still there, he is so I select the Kona camp ground as it is a way out of town. It fronts the water.

Mon
I take a walk around the mini bungle bungles and a look out.
My tyre has arrived, off with the now thin old one and on with the new.
I go shopping and strike Craig, who has had a stick through his leg at Mornington station while checking his bike. Flown out to derby then he had to get his bike out... It pays to be lucky. Then I see Rob Pop and we talk and arrange to have diner, he and Kevin are staying at the town caravan park (yet another one).

Tues
On to the bungles! I check the creek height at turkey creek, the helicopter people say its about their desk height. Mummm, I'll take a look, at least this will proved some thing to do this afternoon if I have to come back and get a land tour in. At the moment I have no desire to do a helicopter flight in, event at $130.
The road in is good but little better than a station track, with a fair amount of use. Sand, Corrugations but not bull dust with blind corners and narrow keeps the speed down. The creek crossings are some thing else. Because the water does not flow rapidly enough to give a clear view of the bottom between vehicles using the crossing you have no idea how deep nor what materials make up the creek crossing. I use a stick to gauge one crossing, but miss a large tree route. As I reach the end of the crossing bouncing from one mysterious rock to another I gun the motor hitting the tree route at an angle throwing the bike to the left, and me to the right. We stop. I look down to see the right carby hanging but its control cables. 1) Turn the petrol off. 2) Force carby back on to both the cylinder and air box, this requires some force but adrenaline helps. Right the bike and start it and ride out, stop the bike and sit and think. If the carby was tighter on the bike it may not have come off, but my shin is sore enough so I think the tension is about right!. I loosen the clamps and fine tune the right hand carbys location, refasten the clamps when finished.
The deepest crossing is that ... deep. I look for a way around. About 10 metres upstream the water depth is less than 100 mm. But it is rocky in the creek and getting there! I walk a route to get there and across. I make it to the crossing without help, falling gently once in some soft sand. A 4WD driver decides to help in the crossing, that's appreciated until he pulls me to the side that I am not balances for ... oh well finally make it across. But it is now sandy. So I now unload the bike, and ride out to the road. Should have unloaded the bike at the start, much easier to balance.
On to the ranger station. They sell soft drinks, T and polo shirts. And camping fees. The camp sites only have drop toilets. And water. The rest is BYO. As it is now getting late we go to the closest camp site, the sun setting lights up the range with great colours. Set up camp with setting sun, but misplace my Swiss army knife so go borrow a can opener to have diner.

Wed

I find the Swiss army knife as a matter of priory. I need it to open the breakfast tin of fruit. After breakfast off to the north western end of the park to do some walks. One walk is closed but frog hollow is very good, a water fall cutting into the rock as it comes down, then into a deep plunge pool of rocks small and large. Then the water must rise up 2 meters from the bottom and flow over boulders around trees (gum and palm) through the narrow valley. There is no water here now, and you could not walk in here in the wet, too much water! It is quite a difficult walk in the dry, with the water you would not try!
Echidna chasm is just a chasm in rock, the chasm is very narrow, has some bits that widen out having places where water falls in. Interesting. A bower bird on the entrance track is building a nest with black and white stones. Back to camp for lunch, early. Then on to the south east end. There is a long walk here to piccaninny gorge, lasting some days. I do the walk to the rock mounds and then on to cathedral gorge. The bungle rocks are a disappointment. From the ground they are little more than the mini bungle bungles... so I would recommend see the mini bungle bungles and, by reports, doing a helicopter flight over the bungle bungles. The gorges/chasm are OK, but you can see similar else where with less effort.

Thurs
Out the next day, I decide that the deep crossing is best done straight through! I remove the luggage and walk the tank bag via the dry route. But I realize I'm going to get tired of lugging the things around. So I ride the bike. The bike stops about 3/4 the way across, a smooth sandy bottom. The water is over the top of the carbys... Get off and push it till the carbys are clear of the water, drain the water out of the float bowels and start up and ride out. Now being wet I just walk the luggage straight across, saving some distance and rocky walking. The other crossings are a breeze in comparison.
I stop and talk to a coupe in a ford station wagon. they are waiting to try to get a lift in. Good luck. Then I come across a girl in a lite ace van, she thinks she'll make it in. I tell her how deep the creeks are, and of the couple in the ford. A 4wd buss comes up behind, so have to move off to let them through.
On to turkey creek and a hamburger. On to Wyndham. There is a historical museum, closed. Up to five ways lookout, too smoky but I do take a shot of the ship loading cattle from a road train looks really small from up here. Then on to Kununurra. Back to the camp ground and have a quite night with a hot shower.

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