Our final day along the Kimberley coast began in the town of Wyndham near the mouth of the Ord River. We had a choice today to take part in one of two exciting adventures: a flight over the Bungle Bungles and Lake Argyle or a cruise up the Ord River.
The upper part of the Ord River is a 50 km long stretch of river that winds its way through some spectacular country from the town of Kununurra to the base of Lake Argyle dam. It is one of the Kimberley’s best wildlife viewing spots, and it certainly did not disappoint us today. As we made our way up the river we had great views of some of the region’s iconic animals including a large variety of the region’s birds, numerous freshwater crocodiles and several short-eared rock wallabies. Other notable sightings included the Common Wallaroo, Merton’s Water Monitor and colonies of both the Little Red and Black Flying Foxes.
We completed our cruise at the Lake Argyle dam wall where we exchanged boat for bus. This impressive engineering feature stands almost 100 metres high and is 300 metres thick at its base. Constructed in the 1970s, the dam wall helped form the largest artificial inland water way in Australia. The lake took only two wet seasons to fill and holds the equivalent of approximately 20 Sydney Harbours! Before we headed back to home base aboard the National Geographic Orion we also dropped in on the Durack Homestead – the residence of the pioneering Durack family who came to this part of the Kimberley in the 1880s.
Those of us that opted to take to the skies for a flight over the Bungle Bungles and Lake Argyle were treated to calm conditions and spectacular views of the region from above. The Bungle Bungles (known as Purnululu in the local Aboriginal language) are a beautiful geological feature that were only ‘discovered’ in the early 1980s. They have since become a major draw for people visiting this part of the Kimberley.
