Girls in charge of the boat.

Boab tree, this is one of the bigger ones we have seen!!!

The jetty from where Cait spent hours fishing and caught nothing, but Jen and Courtney fished for about 5 minutes and caught two catfish. Also the BBQ boat that we hired for a couple of hours to cruise on!!!

Jen on the bank of Kununurra river at the back of the caravan park!!!

Boarding the boat for the Lake Argyle Cruise!!!!

We packed up and left Darwin on Saturday 4th September and headed back to Katherine for an overnight stay before heading to Kununurra. Kununurra is famous for its diamond mines and in particular its very rare pink diamonds, so as you can imagine I was quite keen to do a spot of shopping here!!!!

On our first day we enjoyed a lovely cruise on the beautiful Lake Argyle. Lake Argyle is a man made lake not unlike Glenmaggie but ranges between 9 to 16 times bigger than the Sydney Harbour. Once again the cruise was very informative about the area which Andrew loves, but I really just enjoy the gentle cruising and the beautiful scenery. The kids enjoy all the little extras they do on these cruises like feeding the fish in the water, checking out all the Euros on the rocks and then jumping into the lake for a swim off the boat [much braver than me, because there are fresh water crocs in this lake] and then we all enjoyed a drink and biscuits and dip whilst watching the sunset. Unfortunetly my camera ran out of batteries shortly after we took off so i don't have much to show for this wonderful cruise.

You can probably tell by now that we like a bit of a boat trip!!!!! They certainly beat walking tours because it is so hot here and the kids, whilst they are happy to walk for a bit, the heat does get overwhelming after being out in it for a while, cruising on the water allows you to take in the surrounds in a different but much cooler fashion. So to keep the boating theme alive, the next day we hired aBBQ boat and we headed out again into Lake Kununurra with Captain Andrew Bates [or captain Stubbing as we like to call him] and packed the fishing rods for a bit of a fishing adventure. Once again it was a very pleasant way to spend the day. No fish were caught this time but fun was had by all.

In between swimming, fishing and eating we did find time for a little bit of pink diamond shopping before heading off once more.........this time to Fitzroy Crossing.

We had a delightful stay at the Fitzroy Crossing Lodge, just overnight, before a long haul to beautiful Broome where we are going to have a holiday from our holiday and stay in a self contained airconditioned cabin for a week!!!!! ...... Jude

Katherine was a neccassary stopover as there is no good road to Broome from Darwin and Katherine almost felt like home as we got to know it . It was refreshing to go somewhere that we knew the layout. That is because when traveling like this ,every place is new and an adventure which is great but there is also a daunting aspect to that. Setting up camp in an unknown town can be a bit intimidating.

Studying the towns and places of interest from here to Broome on the Great Northern Hwy there is not a lot to stop for . We all agree that now we just want to start our Beach leg of the journey now (Western Coast) so we did some big driving days (600km +) and only stopping very little to get there. The drive over to Broome was really just more desert similar to the Stuart Hwy ,but I can't remember yet driving for over 280km straight without seeing anything more than a bit of bush and the road, (I thought many times that I could see a "hot dog" stand up ahead, ....mirage ?).We did however, see many magnificent Boab trees!!!! We did spend 3 nights in Kununnura which was the only main town on the way and known for it's Pink Diamonds (and now known to me for that too!! ) The van park was great and backed onto a lilly covered lake that leads on to the Ord River system so we hired a BBq boat and really enjoyed a couple of hours going up to Elephant Rock. There was a large jetty there and we fished off this that night. Caity must have spent hours trying by herself with great patience but gave up just on dusk when Courtney and Jenny tried as the sun set and caught 2 good Cat fish. After trying for so long I really don't think they expected it and I had to laugh at the pandemonium as they tried to land them , all happening within literally 3 mins! Courtney could not see them get hurt so she was careful to kiss and release them ,(thank god as I know who has to clean and cook them ).

We only stopped for the night at Fitzroy Crossing after Kununnura. This town has some history but you have seriously seen it all in under 5 mins. The resort we stayed in however was like a tropical haven with a bar , good restaurants and pool which we made the best use of. On these nights where we only stop to sleep we barely unpack the van ,just sleep in it. So another good drive from there and we reached Broome at about 5 pm on Thursday. Too tired to really look at the town tonight so we have parted company with our faithful van and left it in the resorts carpark and have now retreated into our Family beach unit for the night , which I might add feels like a palace with some long needed privacy. We will stay here for a week or so now, hope it's as nice as they say.......Andrew