Lake Argyle

24 May
After saying farewell to Edith Falls and the enjoyable time we spent there we made tracks for Lake Argyle - the largest man made lake in the Southern Hemisphere. We stopped at Victoria River for lunch (a town that consists entirely of a roadhouse with a motel attached) and continued on to Durack Homestead - the original stone house that was owned by Durack family that owned much of the land that was flooded when the Ord River was dammed to form Lake Argyle. Declan said it looked like new as they had recently painted inside.

Durack Homestead

The house was pulled apart stone by stone, numbered and put into 44 gallon drums, then transported to its current location. The family waited for some time before funding came through to turn it into a museum by which time the numbers had washed off the stones. The house was then rebuilt using the same stone in an order as near as possible to the existing house. The house contains much information about the way the family lived and some of the equipment and tools they used.

Lake Argyle from caravan park swimming pool

Our campsite for the night was the Lake Argyle caravan park which has an amazing  view from their wet edge swimming pool (which was so cold even Declan didn't go for a swim). The lake itself has had a remarkable effect on the wildlife with some of the animals on the endangered list being struck off since the lake was built (it also provides hydro-electricity).
Tim and Declan rose early the next morning to go fishing as we were still on NT time. So they were up at 5.30 and Tom and I got to sleep in (till 6.00!) Turns out we were a little early packing the sleeping bags away, being a bit further south it was cold at night (about 12 degrees).
Once again Tom and I packed the tent and waited for the fishermen to return. A nice gentleman suggested I should be rewarded for packing by being bought a diamond in Kununurra, Tim didn't agree.  I don't know why, pink diamonds were only start at $10,000!