Day 27 – Kununurra and Wyndham

This morning, we were awake at 5.30am (thanks to the sun being up!), so decided to get up and get moving while it was cool. We headed off to the town of Wyndham, recognised geographically as the top town of the West. Wyndham is a small frontier town with its history built on the cattle industry and mining (lead, zinc & iron ore).

On arrival we called in at the Afghan Cemetery, which contains the graves of the Afghan settlers and cameleers (1890s) who provided an important means of transport between the cattle stations and towns of the region. The graves were large due to the lead camel often being buried with its master!

As we entered the town proper, we stopped for a look at a sculpture of a huge 20 metre long crocodile. It was constructed by the local TAFE students using 5km of steel rods, 10 rolls of wire, and 5 cubic metres of concrete.

We also noticed the cyclone sign at the entrance to town, telling us there were no current warnings for the region – phew!

 

Then we drove up the Bastion Range to the amazing lookout that provides stunning views over the surrounding sea, tidal rivers, mudflats and ranges. You can see the five different massive rivers (King, Ord, Durack, Forrest and Pentacost) that converge and flow into the Cambridge Gulf. A great view over the huge port facility (they still use it for live cattle export, and other cargo such as the huge mahogany logs that were sitting ready to go to China).

 

Next we visited the small Wyndham Historical Museum located in the old court house. It contained a fascinating display of memorabilia, journal records, and photographic displays of Wyndham’s past and glory days. Each room contained displays on various subjects like the aboriginals, Chinese store traders, afghan cameleers, cattle meatworks, freezing and canning industry (they made bully beef for the war years here), flying doctor base, famous aviators that attempted world flights from here (Charles Kingsford Smith, etc) and war memorabilia. All very interesting for a history buff like myself. Actually the most interesting thing of all was chatting to a volunteer that runs the museum about life in Wyndham today, and all the issues with the aboriginals.

 

We mentioned how saddened and shocked we were (especially our kids) by the condition of the aboriginal houses (smashed windows, rubbish everywhere, constant lighting up fires of trees & cars outside the properties, etc), and the behaviour of some of them down the main streets of both Kununurra and Wyndham. We must admit to feeling a bit uncomfortable dodging some of the very drunk, abusive men & women, often dragging little children along behind them. There are also lots of very young girls pushing prams around, but the thing that bothered me the most was the condition (both nutritionally and environmentally) of the children.

The lady from the museum (who also worked at the local school) explained it was a constant battle to get the kids to any kind of schooling, the biggest problem being the complete lack of routines in their households. The kids don’t go to bed at scheduled times, but most simply just stay up and wander around the streets until they fall down tired. So even though the school inspectors may get the kids to school sometimes, and there are food programs available there too, it doesn’t do much good, because the kids just fall asleep during classes. A very difficult problem to solve.

We have been astonished to see the liquor restrictions signs in every town, and along roadways limiting the purchasing and drinking of alcohol to try and curb the problem.  Great we thought, they are doing something about the alcohol induced problem. But then we read the fine print. The main problem is that the daily limit for buying full strength beer here is 22 litres (or one carton), per person per day!!  How ridiculous is that? The lady explained that every time the government tries to reduce the limit, the tourism industry arcs up, as they need the sale of liquor to be this high to attract all the men who come to these parts for their big fishing trips. So once again, the  tourism dollar wins out over the struggling aboriginals.  It all seems very unfair, and backwards, and very, very sad.

The other problem affecting the attempts at social welfare towards the aboriginals was one we hadn’t considered, which was a cultural one. Apparently superstition, sorcery and the practice of payback (revenge) on each other are all very much alive and causing great problems in the communities. I really don’t know what the answer is, but sadly, nothing much seems to have changed since the last time we visited the area 12 years ago.

As a nod to the proud aboriginal heritage of the Wyndham area, we visited Warriu Park, in which large bronze statues depicting an aboriginal family with native animals was erected.

 

On the way home, we took the back road to Parry Creek billabong. The lady at the museum gave us the following instructions to get there (drive 10km out of Wyndham, look for the 90km sign to Kununurra, count four white posts, then turn left down a dirt track, taking the right fork. Yipes, anyway, we gave it a go and were not disappointed.

Marlgu Billabong has a boardwalk and shaded birdhide allowing visitors to watch and photograph a large number of birds and crocs. We spotted five big salties swim through the water, then heave themselves up on the banks to sun themselves.

It was a lovely place to spot many birds, including a jabiru (and I thought they were only native to Kakadu!), my favourite pretty little Bee eater, grey storks, herons, brolgas, magpie geese, jacanas, and many others. The water lilies here were especially pretty, and you might like my photo of the black Glossy Ibis looking for small fish among the lilypads.

 

After some lunch from the car, it was back into Kununurra to fuel up (the diesel at the co-op out of town was 10c cheaper than in town – $1.44). Then back to the caravan park for a lovely swim in the pool.