How does one describe the contrasts of east Kimberley?

 Wyndham was once a thriving cattle port and meat works, but now, without these businesses it struggled as a service town for some port workers, one or two fishermen, station personal, indigenous families and tourists. Yet it is worth a visit to go to the Five River Lookout to see the Ord, Durack, Forrest, Pentecost and King Rivers all enter the Cambridge Gulf. I am always conscious of the people who make such towns their home and of their attempts to make the place comfortable. Efforts for a central park, retaining walls and a good road to the lookout and signage are all appreciated. But there is a sense of this is a temporary home for many people. One grocery shop, closed shops, others needing a paint, a bakery only open for 3 hours a day – all signs of a town struggling to make ends meet and with little hope of new industries and few opportunities for employment. Even the Parry Lagoon farm which has the Caravan Park is 15 kilometres out of town. A great place for bird watching – a practice continued in Kununurra.

Here is the contrast. It is a town that began to support the 15,000ha of gravity irrigation feeding mangos, melons, bananas, chick peas and Indian sandalwood and sugar in the past – to name a few crops. Now this town is the closest to the Argyle Diamond mines and is the intersection between all tourists travelling either east or west around the Top End of Australia. Tourism, especially between April and October is madly busy. Flights or other Tours to see the Ord River and Lake Argyle or out to the Purnululu National Park (known by most of us as the Bungle Bungles) are in full swing. Our choice was a day trip by boat(s) and bus. Floating 55 km up the Ord River with an excellent guide with a keen eye for wildlife and a good knowledge of their importance to the eco-system was a great way to spend a morning. We were actually on the diversion dam which was the first dam built on the Ord River to hold back some water for the irrigation. The Ord dam and subsequent Lake Argyle- which filled in less than 3 years and now holds 22 Sydney harbours worth of fresh water, was built to ensure that the Diversion dam had a level water supply all the year. This stable level in the waterway ensures the gravity irrigation can continue. There was disbelief among South Eastern Australian farmers when they discovered farmers on this system pay only $9/megalitre! There is plenty of room to grow, – potentially a further 60,000 more hectares but some pumping would be required and  governments of all persuasions cannot be convinced to look to the north for water solutions. There is a strong feeling that the farmers must come to the land where the water is, not to send the water south, but until Governments will commit to the infrastructure and until there is demand from farmers willing to move, nothing will happen. My thoughts are that this type of farming is for irrigators, not broad acre farmers like ourselves – perhaps some along the Murray should be thinking North Western Australia. Our tour then took us onto Lake Argyle itself. In three hours we saw only 0.5% of the water- in some places we could not see the land on the horizon. The day ended with a sunset – pink and blue reflected blue and pink in the water – a magical day. Fauna seen included rock wallabies, fruit bats, fresh water crocodiles and birds- azure kingfishers, snake necked cormorants, black kite, white corellas and jacardas – called the Jesus bird- because it walks on water (lilies) We stayed three nights in Kununurra and would have liked to stay longer but it was time to head south again- on into the Purnululu National park.