DAY 58 - A DAY AT LAKE ARGYLE….

We have a full day at Lake Argyle today.  We are booked on the sunset tour of Lake Argyle this afternoon, so thought we would spend the morning exploring exploring the surroundings. 

Views from the Pannican Lookout looking towards Kununurra

Views from the Pannican lookout looking back towards Lake Argyle

 

The Kapok Flower and fruit

The split Kapok Fruit

Views from Pannican Lookout

 Steve was keen to do the 4WD up to Pannican Lookout to get a birds eye view of the Lake.  Seriously,  I think he was more interested in the 4WD part of the trip.  The views were seriously good though.

Road coming down from the Lookout

4WDriving at Lake Argyle

 From here we went and checked out the Argyle Homestead Museum.  The magnificent homestead was originally built in 1895 by the Durack family on Argyle Downs Station (now mostly submerged by the lake) Constructed of handcrafted limestone blocks with crushed termites mounds used as mortar, it was a magnificent building for its time.

A visit to Argyle Homestead Museum

Lots of history about the Durack family

Inside the homestead

Out front of the homestead

During the early 1970’s a decision was made to remove the homestead before Lake Argyle began to fill in order to preserve this magnificent building for all time.
The homestead was dismantled stone by stone with every stone coded in such a way so as to be able to be rebuilt with every stone back in its original position.

Admission cost was $4.  We walked through the home looking at the various displays, but  I think I found the video they were showing on the Durack family and the building of Lake Argyle a little more interesting.  

Several of the family members are buried in a cemetery in the front lawn of the homestead.  We did find out that the lake filled much quicker than anyone predicted, and not everything was salvageable from the original homestead.  There are still several vehicles with their keys in the ignition at the bottom of the dam.

After our visit to the Homestead, we headed back to the Dam, to drive over the dam wall and check out the look outs near the dam wall.  It was all very interesting.  It is the WA’s largest and Australia’s second largest freshwater man made reservoir, with a water volume 21 times the size of Sydney Harbour.  It is part of the Ord River Irrigation Scheme.

The dam wall is 335 metres (1,099 ft) long, and 98 metres (322 ft) high. The earth-fill only dam wall at Lake Argyle is the most efficient dam in Australia in terms of the ratio of the size of the dam wall to the amount of water stored. The lake was named after the property it partly submerged, Argyle Downs.

Dam Wall

Less than a quarter of the tower is visible

Lake Argyle

Cars along the dam wall

Ord River side of the Dam

The whole building of the dam was a massive engineering feat and took only three years to complete.  Quite amazing really.  The once construction camp has now been converted into a lovely resort.  

We drove down to a lovely picnic area on the Ord River side of the dam, past the Hydro Electricity Plant.  The Hydro Electricity plant here supplies power to all of Kunnurra, Halls Creek and Wyndham.  

Dam Wall from the Ord River side of the Dam

Ord River side of the Dam

We drove up to two more lookouts before heading home to have a quick bite to eat before we had to be back in reception by 1.30pm to view a video before leaving on our sunset cruise of the Lake…

Views from the lookout above the boat ram[p

Ian and Kathy at the Lookout above the boat ramp.

The vessel we went out on for our cruise was called the “Durack” named after the famous pastoral family of the district….  It was a good size vessel with comfortable seating… Not that we sat a lot, we were able to move around the vessel freely. 

Fresh water croc sunbaking on the banks of the Dam

Fish feeding on our tour

This cruise was very different to the other cruises we have been on these holidays.  This one was more about the water scheme, and the lake rather than the birdlife and wildlife, although we did see both of these.  We saw fresh water salties sunbaking on the banks of the lake,  we fed the fish,  saw termite mounds, walleroos on the shore.  It was much harder to photograph the lake though because of the sheer size of it, and the huge volume of water.

Termite mounds on only one side of the cliff - the side facing the sun.

Enjoying being out on the water

The map of Lake Argyle

Wildlife on Lake Argyle - Walleroos

Birdlife on Lake Argyle

It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon.  Just before sunset, our boat stopped to allow everyone to have a sunset swim.  Half the passengers jumped in.  We chose not to this time.  We were served, wine, softdrinks and cheese and dips on board as we watched the sunset.  It was stunning.

Wine Cheese and Nibblies at Sunset

Set adrift to the swimmers

Those in the water did not miss out,  they had a platter for them also, with wine and beer, which they floated out to them on a life buoy.  Looked so good.

 

Sunset on Lake Argyle

Dusk

By the time we got back to the boat ramp it was dark.  It was the perfect end to our time at Lake Argyle.  At least we didn’t have to cook dinner when we got home.  We had made a huge pot of Pea and Ham and Vegetable Soup in Timber Creek before crossing the border when we were trying to use up all our fruit and vegetables.  Tonight we were finishing that soup for dinner…

.

It was nice to get home and just have to heat it up rather than start from scratch.  Life is good…