Day 31: A Short Drive to Lake Argyle

It is a  very short drive this morning to Lake Argyle, we are back tracking a bit and maybe we should have gone there before Kununurra, but for some reason in my planning, we are doing it this way. It may have been about availability of campgrounds at Lake Argyle at the time, but given the current conditions where availability doesn't seem to be a problem, we could have gone there first.

Once you turn off the highway, the drive to Lake Argyle is very scenic.

Spillway Creek

Our first glimpse of Lake Argyle

We arrived at the caravan park about 45 minutes early, even after we took it very slowly getting here. They doggedly stuck to their stated arrival time of 11 am, so we had to wait around for 45 mins before we could access our site. There was quite a line up of vans in the waiting queue by the time reception officially opened for arrivals. We had a cup of coffee and a walk around to fill in time.

It is a large spread out park, on an elevated bank of Lake Argyle. They also run tours including boat trips on the lake which we will be doing tomorrow.

There is a pub, beer garden and restaurant as they also get a lot of day visitors as the tours all start and finish here. We were able to have a cup of coffee in a nice shady spot to fill in time. Still with plenty of waiting time we went for a walk to check out some of the park.

There is an infinity pool overlooking the lake

There are some great Lake Views

Once checked in, our site is well shaded and reasonably level, so we are happy. Set up is taking us less and less time and soon we are settled.

Now we need to find out where everything is, so before lunch we go for a walk to locate the amenities etc. The facilities are very good and modern, plenty of toilets and shower ensuites, and a large laundry.

Over lunch we plan our afternoon activities. First on the list is to visit the Homestead Museum. The Argyle dam flooded Argyle Station owned by the Durack Family. Before the valley was flooded, the Durack Homestead was dismantled stone by stone and stored in Kununurra to be later reconstructed on its current site, 17km from the original site.

The original position at Argyle Station and the site it is on now

Only the Homestead was saved, the rest of the station buildings, including the kitchen are at the bottom of the lake. By anyones measure, this is an outstanding building and would have been amazing when it was completed in 1895. 

The story of the Durack Family is told throughout the museum. Born in Glasgow, Ireland. In 1853, Michael Durack, a tenant farmer, moved to Goulburn Australia with his wife and children. He died soon after leaving his eldest son Patrick "Patsy" to look after the family. Pattsy borrowed money from a friend and headed to the Goldfields, returning with enough money to repay his debt and buy a property in Goulburn. From that start he expanded into QLD and by1877 he had around 30,000 cattle at Coopers Creek in SW QLD.

It is a long and amazing story, but the Durack's performed a cattle drive over 4,800 km from SE QLD to the Ord River.

They ended up building an empire of cattle stations about the size of Belgium. Patsy's wife, Dame Mary Durack became a highly acclaimed author. Her classic novel, Kings in Grass Castles apparently traces the history of their cattle empire.

The shaded area was all Durack Property

Apparently the Durack Family strong ties to Goulburn prevailed throughout their lives and the founders are now buried there, despite there death in the Kimberly, their final wishes were to have their bodies buried in Goulburn which after what would have been an incredible logistics plan happened.

Just alongside the Homestead fence was a resident Bowerbird nest. He was very proud of his bower and we watched him rearranging his treasures.

A couple of tour buses arrived towards the end of our time at the museum, the little merchandise and ice cream sales benefited, as we moved on.

Next we drove back towards the lake to see a lookout that was easily accessible by car. There were great views of the lake and the lower Ord River Dam.

Lake Argyle from the lookout

Cruise boat boarding area

Lake Argyle

Dam wall

View looking back towards caravan park

Ord Dam

Ord River Hydro Power Station

Stunning scenery below the dam in the spillway

The scenery here is stunning and I am sure we will see much more tomorrow. We head back to the caravan park, and there are more vans lining up to enter the park. To our great surprise there is a Torus van in the lineup, with a Ford Everest as the tow vehicle. It is only the 3rd Torus we have seen on our travels so far.

On an afternoon walk around the park I caught up with the Torus van, a nice young couple with a couple of kids in an 18 ft van. Also from NSW, it turned out they come from Anna Bay, and like many people we have met, are heading clockwise on their big lap.  Going anticlockwise like us seems less popular, but I guess driving across the Nullabor into the wind could trigger a rethink for future trips.

Before dinner we went over to the beer garden for a drink, where they had live music. The musician was pretty good.