We are now in Western Australia (Lake Argyle) Sat 28th to Tue 31st July
Yesterday (Saturday), after cleaning the caravan ready for inspection at the border, we left Timber Creek on the Victoria Highway, and crossed into Western Australia. We had to open the caravan for inspection at the quarantine station on the border. No fresh fruit or vegetables (we spent the previous day cooking apples, pears, beetroot and carrots), no honey, weeds or cane toads. So far we haven't found any contraband smuggled in inadvertently.
The turn off to Lake Argyle Resort and Dam is only a few kilometres past the border, and well before Kununurra. We were told that we would get a good discount if we booked two cruises, so we did the Ord River cruise on Sunday ...
The river goes downhill 10m in the first 15km so there's some fast flowing water ...
and the Lake Argyle Sunset cruise on Monday, where a certain exhibitionist was one of only two passengers who went for a sunset swim!
Lake Argyle is Australia's largest fresh water storage; it holds about 20 Syd-arbs. (What's a Syd-arb? The amount of water in Sydney Harbour - roughly 500 gigalitres.) The lake is about 40km south of Kununurra. The idea is to regulate the water entering the Ord River so that there is a constant flow all year round.
Before the dam was built the river would stop flowing during the dry season.
In conjunction with the Diversion Dam at Kununurra, completed in 1963 to form Lake Kununurra, the Lake Argyle dam allows gravity fed irrigation of a large area of productive land, mainly north of Kununurra.
Currently the irrigation area is about 15,000 hectares, but the potential is about 70,000 hectares.