Kununurra

Crossing the border from the Northern Territory we set our clocks back by one and a half hours.  This meant that our lovely twilight evenings that had been perfect for camping, now were going to end early -we would be cooking and eating the evening meal in the dark.

View from above Kununurra Camp

I personally really like daylight saving as I am more a night person than a morning person.  So I found the lack of evening light disappointing.  It was one of the reasons I loved Northern Territory.

There were strict quarantine laws at the border to Western Australia.  No raw nuts, seeds, plants, fruit or vegetables.  We had finished all of our fresh food, but we decided to stash a packet of alfalfa seeds on the Northern Territory side of the border with the intention to retrieve them on the way back.

We were also slightly concerned that we were going to be embarrassed at the border by the fact that the back seat was littered with the half masticated detritus from the children's car snacks.  There was plenty of seeds, nuts, sultanas, banana skins and  apple cores kicking around on the seats and  in the foot zone, and we secretly hoped that customs would give the car car a jolly good detail for us.

Luckily, we didn't get called out for the appalling state of our car, so subsequently didn't get the free car detail either.  We were waved through the check point with a minimum of fuss.  Perhaps it was hoped that the children's treatment of the mushed up food mass decontaminated the potential of any introduced pests. Or maybe they willfully turned a blind eye, placing us into the too hard basket.

Having Jettisoned all of our fresh food, first stop was Coles in Kununurra to stock up.  We booked into the Kununurra Caravan park where we caught up on washing our clothes and removing the campsite grime from ourselves with lovely hot showers.
The landscape around the town was stunning with more of the lost city style of rock formations.

The town of Kununarra itself was quite pleasant and felt fairly new.  It had been built relatively recently to service the Ord River scheme.

However, even more famously, at the time that we were visiting Kununurra, the town was preparing for an influx of film crew for the block buster movie Australia starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.  There was an air of distinct excitement in the town as it was possibly the most exciting thing to happen to the town in a long time.  Budding future movie stars were seen preening themselves as they dreamed of being recognised as the next biggest talent in being a movie extra. They waited in intense anticipation, sunning themselves to create the perfect movie tan and practising their best facial angles, convinced that they were about to be discovered at any moment.
Kununurra was not a stranger to celebrities.
They have a celebrity tree park. Yes, it's true.
The trees have been planted by various celebrities, perhaps Nicole Kidman will be the next big name to grace the park.

On our second day in Kununurra, 14 July, we went to the Agricultural show. It was pretty cheap to get in, $10 for adults and $3 for kids. The show wasn't very big, but we had a ball.  There was musical entertainment, pavilions of livestock and produce, typical show rides and the best bit - novelty races.  The watermelon races (watermelons for shoes) were hilarious.
In the evening we bought our dinner from various stalls and headed into the bar, a fenced off area where we could enjoy a drink and still see the stage.
For dessert we bought some auctioned off cupcakes from the produce pavilion. What a cool idea, auctioning off all of the fresh exhibits. You could bid on cakes, fruits and vegetables.
We met and talked to some entrepreneurial Mirriwong people who sell some interesting art work,  They carve designs into the outer casing of boab seeds.  They look quite good and for $5 we bought one.  The kids also attempted to create their own on some boab seeds that we had found a long the way.

On Sunday, before heading north to Wyndham, we walked up behind our camp ground and climbed the Mini Bungle Bungles. For a short walk, it afforded fabulous views.

Next, on the back road to Wyndham.....