Day 65 27/05/2011 Big Horse Creek Campground to Kununurra (Western Australia)

Day 65 27/05/2011 Big Horse Creek Campground to Kununurra (Western Australia)



Callum with his Long Tom.



Thank goodness for grey nomads, we hadn’t even give a thought to the time changes that occurred when we crossed the NT / WA boarder later today, today was one of those special days when we get an extra 1 ½ hrs to play.  With this in mind we headed back down to the boat ramp for a few hours fishing.  The only lucky one today was Callum he caught a Long Tom.  This isn’t an eating fish but it was awesome to catch one because none of us had seen one before and wow did it have razor sharp teeth. Unfortunately we were unable get the hooks out of the fish’s mouth before it died but by the time we released it a couple of local Whistling Kite’s had spotted us and were waiting expectantly for the fish.  With glee the kids threw the fish into the water and then watched as one of nature’s amazing bird’s of prey swooped down and plucked the dead fish off the top of the water with its feet and flew away. Callum was so happy to be the only one who caught a fish and whilst Zac and I were happy for him, we too wanted to catch fish!!



The Whistling Kite round one to get the Long Tom.



We headed off, planning to have lunch at Keep River National Park, the park is only partially open due to the damage from the wet season, we had planned to stay at the NP for the night but the road was not suitable for us to take the caravan on so we had to be happy with lunch and the knowledge that on another trip we would plan to stay.

With delight we headed over the NT / WA border, we were hoping that we had left behind our numerous medical emergencies!!  I certainly didn’t want to collect any more medical record numbers for the children in WA.  We arrived at Kununurra for a few days and I was reunited with an old friend.  It was delightful catching up as we haven’t seen each other for over 20 years.  We decided that we could head into town for dinner and to stock up on beer supplies.  Well if we thought NT had draconian alcohol laws, they were nothing compared to the new restrictions in place in Kununurra.  We quickly learnt that firstly you can only buy full strength beer between 5pm and 9pm Monday – Saturday, secondly one adult can only buy one carton of beer and either two bottles of wine or a bottle of spirits per day, obviously the 20% off for buying 6 bottles of wine did not apply at Liquorland in Kununurra.  What made the exercise harder was that it felt like the entire adult population of Kununurra was lined up at all of the bottle – o’s at 5pm, a very funny experience, so to have the complete cultural experience we too lined up so that we could stock up!!  From my observations around town it did not appear that the purchasing restrictions was having a huge impact on the local community’s alcohol consumption!! Or the social problems associated with alcohol abuse.

We spent a relaxing evening catching up with old friends at their house overlooking the Ord River. 

One more huge highlight for the day is such a funny story.  In Alice Springs, whilst purchasing our alcohol supplies Pete noticed a competition being run by Liquor Land.  If you purchased certain brand products you could enter for the chance to win one of 5 Vespers.  (for the past few months I’ve decided I would like one to travel to and from the office, see eventually I know I have to go back to work!!)  So we grabbed 6 bottles of Vino Gusto and I entered an entry each day.  I continued this until the end date of the 25^th of May.  Here’s the hilarious bit.  As we entered mobile coverage at Kununurra my phone started beeping with all messages for the past three days.  The first message was from the “Jillian” saying that we’d had one a Vesper and to please contact her.  What a hoot, we laughed and laughed, and laughed.  We never win anything.  So I contacted Jillian and she congratulated us and filled us in.  I explained that we wouldn’t be home for another 4 months.  We will be able to pick up our new Vesper at the end of September from a Carringbah dealer.  How funny is that???????  We’re still pinching ourselves we will pick it up when we get back, the big decision now is red or black??