Wyndham

Sunday 12th July 2009
We left not long after breakfast for the 100km drive to Wyndham where we really didn't expect much and our expectations were met. However, along the way to our destination we went past the East end of the Gibb River road which is a bit of a landmark. There isn't much at Wyndham apart from a crocodile park, a large concrete croc, a boat ramp and the Five Rivers Lookout (picture 1). We checked out the boat ramp first to see if the locals (all Aboriginals) were catching any fish but apart from a few little catfish there was nothing. There was however no shortage of locals trying to sell us carved boad nuts. While we chatted away with the locals a small tinny pulled up with two adults and two children. They came from a 12mt catamaran anchored not far away. The two boys were 9 and 11 yrs old and had spent most of their life (the last 7 years) living on board the catamaran cruising the Philipines whilst being enrolled in Distance Education for their schooling. The parents reckon that it's time to get the kids back on land so they can attend high school. As they were 2 and 4 years old when they left Perth neither of them have ever been in a class room nor have they got any school mates or other friends.
Life is cheap in the Philipines, so they just lived of the rent which they collect for their house in Perth. If it wasn't for the kids they wouldn't go back to the suburbs.
Our next stop was the Service station where the fuel was about 16 cents cheaper than in Kununurra and the bloke that runs the servo also runs the tourist info from the servo counter. The next destination was the Five Rivers Lookout (picture 1) high above Wyndham where we got a great view of the area and all the rivers feeding into it. Although it was pretty impressive, it must be awesome when they rivers are flowing strong during the wet season.
A bit further out of town was a 7km dirt road leading to Parrys Lagoon. The Lagoon (picture 2) was a real oasis in the dry landscape and the birdlife was simply stunning. It was the first time we spotted Brolgas in the wild. There were countless ducks, moorhens, kites, sea eagles, egretts other species we have never seen before. We spent a bit of time in the bird hide before we had our lunch on this beautiful lagoon which was full of water lillies.
On the way out we stopped at a couple of pretty Boab trees, which are abundant in this particular region of the Kimberley, and also at the old Telegraph Station overlooking the lagoon.
Back on the bitumen I noticed that the 4WD wouldn't disengage and then I briefly heard a couple of strange noises during acceleration but couldn't quite figure out what was wrong. However, a few kilometers further, just after we turned to "The Grotto", it all became clear when the noises were more pronounced and I stopped to investigate and found the left hand rear tyre was flat (only on the bottom!).
A quick tyre change on the side of the road (picture 3) saw us pulled up for 15 minutes - we gave "The Grotto" a miss and turned back towards Kununurra, now without a spare tyre for the car.
Back in Kununurra we tried Ron's tyre fixing kit but found that the tyre had suffered a bad cut, probably from a sharp rock on the dirt road. Although Ron fixed the hole the tyre is in very poor condition and wouldn't last if put back on the car. I will try to get a new tyre before we depart tomorrow morning.
Back at the caravan our generous neighbour Peter, who's been on a Barrmundi fishing trip, gave us a couple of Barra fillets to whet our appetite. Needless to say the Barra was beautiful and we will try go on a Barra fishing trip during our stay in NT.
Tomorrow will be a big day, new tyre at 7am then hitch uo the caravan and head towards Katherine. We will camp out tomorrow night so I will not be online to upload the blog but hopefully we'll come back to civilization some time on Tuesday when we should arrive in Douglas Springs.