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A Bit More About Lorella Springs …
We loved Lorella Springs and vowed we’d go back again, but
earlier in the season next time. We
were limited with the amount of water in the various swimming spots and the 80
km (4 hour) drive to the coast was out of the question in the heat, with nowhere
to swim except croc infested waters.
With 1 million acres and tracks all over the property leading to the next
beautiful water hole, there’s plenty yet to discover.
Up north they’ve had their worst wet season for years, so
everything is very dry and dusty including the camping area.
The owner of Lorella is Rhett, a 41 year old dad who runs
the property with his 2 teenage sons and a 4 year old son named Alaska.
The little boy has the most unusual
features and looks like he’s from another planet and possibly related to Dr
Spock. When planning our
trip, our research on Lorella uncovered an horrific accident Rhett had in 2011
on the property.
As is usual,
often when they travel on the many tracks on the property they tow a large
grader tyre to flatten the track behind them.
This tyre was attached with a nylon "snatch strap" that is standard for
most outback vehicles to assist other vehicles in boggy conditions.
At the end of the strap was a short length of chain around the actual grader
tyre so that the strap does not wear as it drags across the ground. The chain
was connected back to itself with fencing wire.
Rhett’s young son Indy was driving at the time when the tyre hooked up,
stretched the strap, then the connection to the tyre let go and fired the chain,
shattering through the rear windscreen.
The chain smashed
into the rear of Rhett's skull producing a huge haematoma, wrapping around his
head, opening up a massive wound to the front of his forehead, across his left
eye, shattering the bones around the eye and damaging the eye, smashing his
jawbone, and cutting right through to the inside of his mouth.
They didn’t think he’d even survive, but when we saw him we
couldn’t even detect a scar.
Sometime after the accident Rhett sneezed out a chunk of windscreen glass which
had gone through his head. He’s
really a lucky guy.
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Rhett and his 16 year old son Tristan, are always vying for
the attention of the cute backpackers who come to work on the property.
Rhett is full of great ideas, and some hair brained ones as well.
He’s transformed one section of the camping into a nudist area, hoping to
attract busloads of cute European backpackers.
Unfortunately the only people to have used it were old ladies and men
with creepy dangling bits. The
nudie area was deserted so Alan and I wandered around and discovered they had
the best camping spot in the place.
Plenty of toilets with no doors and open showers and a great escarpment as a
backdrop.
HEADING WEST INTO WA FROM KATHERINE
Alan has told you all about the next few days after Lorella
Springs, so I’ll pick up again after leaving Katherine.
We’d hoped to spend a few days camping along the Victoria
River so stocked up on fresh fruit and veggies.
We knew that when we got to the quarantine station at the WA border we’d
have to hand over any uneaten food, so we shopped carefully.
The weather is getting hotter by the day, so by the time we
pulled into the Gregory NP on the Victoria River it was very hot and dusty.
We’d tried to stay here last year and the place was jam packed, but now
it was almost deserted. We decided
we couldn’t sit it out for 4 days in the dust and heat so would only spend one
night.
We were up early next morning and launched the little boat
into the Victoria River and spent a couple of hours enjoying the cool weather.
We’d taken in all the fishing advice given by the very nice man from
Tackle World in Katherine.
According to him we’d need to wait for the neap tide the following Friday for
the best fishing, and it was only Sunday, so we didn’t even get a bite. We’d
chatted to a couple at the boat ramp who were taking early morning photos and he
assured us that there weren’t any saltwater crocs in the freshwater river, but
thankfully we know better than to listen to other people and we came across a 4
metre saltie sunbaking on the bank.
Our boat wash was splashing against his side but he wasn’t fazed.
We probably got a bit closer than we should have, but Alan had his hand
on the throttle ready for a quick getaway if he moved too much.
Before going out in the boat we’d readied the van so we
didn’t have to spend too much time in the sweltering heat.
Now that we weren’t staying, we were overloaded with fresh fruit and
veggies, and spent quite some time slicing, dicing and cooking all the
vegetables and stewing apples in the ever increasing heat in the van.
Alan was busy juicing the limes (for the Coronas) and lemons (for the
fish we were going to catch), and we donated 2 firm avocadoes which would have
been delicious in a couple of days’ time, and a lettuce to our nearest camping
neighbours.
The officer at the Quarantine checkpoint went through the
whole van, including front boot, under the bed and all through the fridge,
letting us keep the fresh bay leaves brought from Sydney, but taking our baby
spinach and a few lettuce leaves.
We could have squirrelled food away inside our shoes or dirty clothes, but
you’ve got to do the right thing.
LAKE ARGYLE
The drive from the NT/WA border to Lake Argyle Tourist Park
was just down the road and we spent 3 nights there.
The East Kimberley region is spectacular, and we’d heard great reports on
the Argyle River Caravan Park and the reviews on Trip Advisor were all the same
– it was all about the pool and the view of the Argyle Dam and surrounding
mountains. Imagine a caravan park
with an infinity pool and a view like this!
There are less and less people travelling now as all the sensible ones
have left the heat and gone home, so we’ve got plenty of room to spread out,
although it was pretty hard to get the corner spot in the pool for this photo.
We were surrounded by water – the enormous Argyle Dam (18
times the volume of Sydney Harbour) and the Ord River, so we took the
opportunity to get out in the boat again.
The smooth water in the dam was a skiers dream and the surrounding
mountains made it a spectacular vista.
After hooning around a bit, we tied up to a drowned tree in
the middle of the dam and had morning tea and a swim.
It was a struggle trying to get back into the boat in deep water, so we
found a rocky outcrop jutting out of the water which we tied the boat to and had
a second swim.
With fishing advice from Woody one of the caravan park
attendants, on the second day we decided to try our luck in the Ord River so
grabbed the fishing gear, beach towels and beach umbrella and headed to the
other side of the dam wall. It’s so hot,
but as you can probably imagine the umbrella didn’t really work well in the
boat.
The river was spectacular with swirling water and currents
and one beautiful sandy beach which we shared with a young German couple who’d
hired a canoe and were on a 2 night adventure down the river to Kununurra.
There are only freshwater crocodiles in this river so we had a nice cool
swim.
Alan caught his own Silver Cobbler which he threw back as
we still had plenty of our donated fish to get through.
We couldn’t have found a better place to drink the Mumm
champagne Tony had given us ages ago.
After an early morning swim next morning, we left beautiful
Lake Argyle and drove 70 kms into Kununurra.
As soon as we left we agreed we should have stayed another night.
Daytime temperatures in Kununurra are 38⁰C so we’ve relented to having
the air-conditioner on in the van for a few hours a day, just so we can cool
down a bit. Alan has just
introduced a rule which means that once the temperature drops to 32⁰C we have to
turn off the aircon and go outside.
It’s very easy to never see the outside of the van, and there are plenty of
people who just sit inside watching TV or knitting for days on end.
The best time of day is early morning or late afternoon and
yesterday in Kununurra Alan had already adjusted the caravan brakes by 6:00 am
and we’d been for a bike ride and were back by 8:00 am.
The temperature was already 32⁰C so we had a few swims and sat in the
air-conditioned comfort of the van while the temperature kept climbing.
Yesterday afternoon we cycled out to the PumpHouse Restaurant on the lake
to watch the sunset and have a couple of drinks on the balcony.
.
Tomorrow we leave Kununurra for the Bungle Bungles and even
hotter temperatures. We’re both
looking forward to getting to Broome and an ocean breeze.
