Monday 15th July 2013 – Kununurra

A bit more of a clean up of the car today – a bit of a wipe down on the inside – it does let in a bit of dust and in particular a clean around the back door so that you could open the  door without creating a dust storm or getting yourself covered in dust.  Also put on some more washing.

We then headed for town – ARB to have the fridge chord attended too, Home hardware to get a gas bottle filled and buy a new fitting for the water hose, and fuel up at Shell (16c per litre off with a Cole’s docket.  As the initial price was 1.89 per litre it still did not make it cheap fuel.  Also refilled the jerry can (had used it on the run back from Mitchell Falls) ready for the run down the Tanami track.

All that done we took a drive to explore some of the Kununurra area – particularly the area under irrigation.  First stop was Ivanhoe Crossing – quite an infamous crossing of the Ord River between Kununurra and Wyndham.  The crossing is in an arc, is quite long and quite deep – and quite closed to traffic these days.  Bollards up at the entrance made it clear that we would not be getting to Wyndham this way today.

Ivanhoe Crossing

Next stop was the Hoochery where they are producing Ord River Rum and a couple of quite nice liqueurs.  Not being rum drinkers we sampled the liqueurs – very nice, and had an excellent lunch of grilled barra with pumpkin and chia salad.

The Hoochery

On the way back into town we called at the Sandalwood Factory.  The main crop in the Ord at the moment is Indian Sandalwood and they are just about to harvest their first crops.  The sandalwood will be sent to Albany where the infrastructure already exists to process the timber.  The native sandalwood is already being processed in the south but is much slower growing than the Indian variety.  Sandalwood Oil is very valuable and used in cosmetics, perfumes, soaps, incense sticks mozzie coils etc.

Sandlewood

Once in town we drove to the other area irrigated area to the south of town on the Packsaddle Plain.  Lots of Mangoes here but also bananas and small crops.  We called into the Zebra Rock Gallery and Jill bought a zebra rock ‘egg’ for her collection.  Another Mango smoothie and down to the river where they feed fish.  There were hundreds of cat fish and a few turtles/tortoises vying for the bread being thrown by the children.

Elephant Rock

Cat Fish at the Zebra Rock Gallery

Down the road we called at the ORIA Orchard where we picked up a paw paw, grapefruit, dried mango and bananas using an honesty system – amazing in this day and age.

Back to town for a bit more shopping and a swim before we went out to dinner at the Asian Cuisine Restaurant next to the Information Centre – was very nice too.