The Duncan Road — to Kununurra — into Summer

The freezing camping conditions we experienced for the first 2 weeks are now receding memories. The last few days have seen us pushing west and north and we are now in HOT country – back into beach shorts and Tshirt . We took the 440 km back road from Halls creek – this route is unsealed bull dusty in places and traverses lots of interesting country. Stayed at Sawpit Creek free camping then pushed on for a very big day to a place called Zebra Mine. The Zebra mine has a campsite and lots of Caravans – we the only ” real tent campers ” Proper loos and showers bought a big smile to Barbs , we both managed to remove most of the red dust. Days are now fine and the temperatures are rising to about 33 degrees c.

The Duncan goes through cattle country and some huge stations. A Cloudless sky and flat limitless horizons made it spectacular in places.

Zebra Rock mine is situation close to Lake Argyle , a huge man made lake that has transformed this regions agriculture. It is over 1000 sq Kms large and up to twice that size in peak floods. We joined the sunset cruise on the lake – it heads down a creek to the lake then meanders through forests of dead trees that are still standing presenting major hazards to skippers. This place is simply full of fish , fresh water crocs and a huge range of birds. It is a dam that has become a surprising ecological success story. As the dry season extends thru mid year the bird life become incredibly intensive . The dead ( drowned ) forests were the only casualty but provide wonderful perches for birds of every kind. Mad Max , the Skipper , gunned up his twin 200 hp outboards and drove the boat at speed thru this maze of huge dead trees.

Dean and Ros , new friends who own this very sophisticated ” Kimberly rugged caravan ” has all the fruit and 750 amp hours of lithium to help it keep functioning. We enjoyed some great moments with these 2.

We had a last loo stop as we departed Zebra Rock campsite today – Barbs scream echoed around the zebra mine . She emerged ashen faced to say , ” when I flushed this animal dropped down from inside the rim — a FROG !!!!😱
” did you think to kiss it ?” I asked
Care needs to be taken here – we have already had 2 of these nasty looking big spiders getting into our gear. Shoes are left in the tent overnight and always checked