Kununurra

 23 – 30 July 2022

We left Keep River and headed towards the Western Australian border. Because of time zones we knew we would gain 1 ½ hours so we took our time leaving the national park and arrived at the border crossing at about 10:00am WA time, or 11:30am NT time. We decided to have an early lunch in the rest area at the border before proceeding through the checkpoint.

We had eaten the last of the fruit at the Keep River National Park, and used the last of our honey there also. We'd cooked and eaten all the fresh vegetables we had also. We had familiarised ourselves with the biosecurity rules and had a small bag of food scraps ready to hand over. The border check was quick and easy and we were on our way to Kununurra.

We had 7 days booked with stays in 2 different caravan parks. We chose well as they couldn’t have been more different even though they were only a few kilometres apart. The first, Kimberleyland, is right on the man-made lake and has a beautiful view to the water from many sites – not ours unfortunately. It was only a short walk down to the water where there were lots of birds and even a resident freshwater crocodile which could be seen sunning itself on the grassy bank most mornings and afternoons. We sat down by the water on a couple of afternoons and enjoyed the view.

Across the road from the caravan park is the Celebrity Tree Park – another beautiful grassy area with a walking track skirting the water and through the park. The main feature is the large number of trees that have been planted over many years by a variety of celebrities from royalty, to engineers to musicians. Adjacent to each tree  a plaque bears information about the celebrity who planted it. We spent quite a bit of time in the park because there were also lots of birds to photograph there.

We visited the National Parks office and purchased a year pass as we knew we would be visiting quite a few national parks while in Western Australia. A visit to the Visitor Information Centre was also on the agenda, and we picked up a few brochures for places we expected to visit. We also scoped out some possible birdy spots on the outskirts of town.

We had four nights at Kimberleyland then moved across town to Hidden Valley, and what a contrast it was. This caravan park is adjacent to Mirrima National Park and across the road from Kelly’s Knob so it has the most awesome views of the rock formations. There is an access track from the back of the caravan park into the national park so we had a quick look on our first morning there but didn’t go far.

We found a good birdy spot out along the road from the caravan park, near one of the irrigation channels so we spent a couple of afternoons there. We also went for a drive to the Sandalwood Factory where a large variety of sandalwood based products are sold, and also the Hoochery, a distillery which also has a coffee shop. On the way back home we drove into Mirrima National Park and went for one of the short walks that start from the carpark. There are a number of walks varying in length and difficulty – we chose the shortest and easiest, Banan derdbe-gerring gooleng theniyinhang which, a 500m Class 1 loop which was mostly along boardwalk and well-made paths.

We chatted to our neighbours one morning and they suggested entering the park from a different track which would make a shorter walk so we took their advice and went that way. The track was easy to follow but it did take us to a rock face that we would have had to scramble up, without knowing what was on the other side. I really didn’t feel comfortable attempting it so we backtracked and cut across on another track that joined up to the main one from the caravan park. We continued and met up with Gerliwany-gerring Banan walk, which continues on to the carpark. We didn’t go all the way to the carpark, instead taking a side track to Demboong Banan (Gap Trail). When we reached the end of the track, where there were views of Kununurra through a gap in the rocks, we realised we were at the top of the rocks we had approached from the other direction. The hiking app I was using confirmed this so we decided we would scramble down. We made our way down very carefully, and returned to the caravan park via the track we had started out on. The whole loop was just over 2 kilometres and was a great walk. The views of the rock formations, which are known as the “Mini Bungles” was fabulous.

We had three nights at Hidden Valley and once we had restocked, fuelled up and repacked we were ready to head to Purnululu National Park for the next 6 nights.