Good Morning Lake
Argyle!
Low 19°c (66°F) – High 28°c
(82°F)
As I anticipated, early to bed – early to rise, so making it up for
first light this morning was a breeze as I was awake at 4.30am, up at 5.00 and
ventured out of the van to take the first shot at 5.15am. I’m so glad I did as the light, particularly
around the infamous infinity pool, was well worth a visit.
It was such a beautiful morning to sit out under the awning for coffee,
pancakes for breakfast and just relax, that we did so until around 9.30am
before heading off to see the rest of the immediate area. All I can say is WOW.
Well maybe I can say a little more than that, but honestly I have no
words to adequately describe the beauty of this area other than to say, for me,
it’s probably the prettiest part of Australia I have seen so far.
Lake Argyle is Western Australia's largest and Australia's
second largest freshwater man-made reservoir by volume and
is visible from space being approximately 18 times the size of Sydney harbour.
The reservoir is part of the Ord River Irrigation Scheme. The primary
inflow is the Ord River, while the Bow River and many other
smaller creeks also flow into the dam. The construction of the Ord
River Dam was completed in 1971 and officially opened the following year.
The dam wall is 335 metres (1,099 ft) long, and 98 metres
(322 ft) high. The earth-fill only dam wall at Lake Argyle is the most
efficient dam in Australia in terms of the ratio of the size of the dam wall to
the amount of water stored. The lake was named after the property it partly
submerged, Argyle Downs. In 1996, the
spillway wall was raised by 6 metres (20 ft), which doubled the dam's
capacity. It’s the only commercial hydro power station in Western
Australia designed using 4 turbines and two 15 mega-watt generators to produce
more than 220gigawatt hours of electricity per annum. At present the power
station provides power for the towns of Kununurra and Wyndham and to the Argyle
Diamond Mine.
Apologies, as I took lots of photos and just couldn’t decide which ones
to use, so I pretty much used most of them.
You’ll see that one of the photos shows a vehicle at the top of the wall
– just to give perspective to the size of this thing. It’s really overwhelming. But the lake and surrounds are just amazingly
beautiful.
The only disappointment for the day’s outing was the
Argyle Homestead Museum. A replicated
building of the once home of the Durack family, which really wasn’t a replica
with its cement floors and mini corrugated iron ceilings with painted lines and
words on the floor to indicate where furniture “might” have been placed, to the
fact that it isn’t the site of the homestead and the graves in the front yard
aren’t actual graves but relocated headstones from the actual graves to prevent
them from being vandalized. I don’t know
about you, but I think when I die I’d rather my headstone be with my body –
perhaps that’s just me. But the whole
thing seemed a bit pointless as most of the items weren’t from the homestead
either – just indicative of what might have been found in a home of the
time. I found the most interesting thing
on the property was a Bower Bird who was busily hunting for things to add to
his impressive home, so it was a big miss for me unfortunately.
We returned to the park for a late lunch and a relaxing afternoon of
reading and watching the world go by with sad thoughts of having to leave
tomorrow. It’s been a pleasure to be
here.
Amazing pics!
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