6 April 2013 - Discovery Holiday Park Lake Kununurra, Kununurra, Western Australia

I must in all fairness mention that the noise levels were no problem in our camp last night, nor did the dogs bark so that we could not really fault the park as we left. We do have to say however that the one we have moved across to is infinitely superior, for our needs anyway.

We delayed our departure of the Hidden Valley Caravan Park until just before 10 am as there was not far to travel. On the way across town, we popped into the Information Centre to see if there was an update on the opening of the Purnululu National Park. The helpful chap there rang through to the park headquarters for us and confirmed that everything was on track and that there had not been abnormal amounts of rain in the interim. Despite that, we have still booked into this park for three days which will allow us plenty of time for preparation. It is about twenty months since we gave the tent and related camping gear an airing.

What a difference the reception was here when we arrived. Annie welcomed us in a most professional manner and guessed correctly which park we had abandoned. She also invited us to the Saturday night sausage sizzle (for a donation to a local charity) which at the time sounded quite attractive.

It did not take us long to set up once more and we spent the rest of the morning relaxing under the awning with the lakeshore just metres away. Ibis seem to be the regular roaming birds here aside from the usual mix of peewees, crested pigeons and parrots, and in the evening the resident “freshies” will be in evidence should we wish to wander along in front of our camp with a torch. Their big eyes will shine forth to thrill us and their toothy smiles to frighten us.

After lunch we set off for a drive to explore the irrigated agricultural area, north of the town and east of the Ord River. Disappointingly little was actually visible from the road except for a few orchards of mango trees and a few bare fields tilled ready for planting out. We did spot one with young plants peeping tentatively up above the dirt but were unable to see what they were. Our guess is that they were melons.

We drove up Ivanhoe Road until we reached the Crossing by the same name, the concrete structure that functions as a crossing over the Ord River when the river is at a level somewhat lower than today. Obviously it was closed today but still accessible to fishermen and photographers. This was, once upon a time before Kununurra existed, the crossing for the only road that linked Katherine to Wyndham. In Wyndham’s museum yesterday we had seen a series of photos of vehicles attempting the crossing in flood conditions, one a road train looking rather lost.

Ivanhoe Crossing

We engaged in conversation with a young man from Namibia in Africa who had waded into the river to fish, disregarding the numerous warnings about estuarine crocodiles lurking about.  We expressed relief when he came out and concern when he told us how he and his girlfriend had been fishing a week ago on the opposite bank. He had been in the river while she on the bank catching the sun, when a large croc came down between them. Fortunately she was able to throw rocks as a distraction while he made a hasty exit. And he was back again and this time alone! Some people never learn.

We crossed the plain to the Weaber Plains Road and called into The Sandalwood Factory which is primarily an outlet for sandalwood products and a café. Here we watched a DVD that threw some light on the where’s, whys and how’s of sandalwood, along with a few informative posters on the walls.

Of course we knew that sandalwood was a tree and did know about the oil and fragrance products but that it should be a major industry confused us. But when you think about the joss sticks and statues used in religious ceremonies and the great piles of sandalwood burned in funeral pyres, you realise that with a burgeoning population in countries that practice these ceremonies, the stocks will soon dry up.

Surprisingly sandalwood was Western Australia’s biggest export earner in the 1840s. Oil was distilled for the first time in 1875 and by the turn of the century there was intermittent production of sandalwood oil. This was however the Australian variety of the sandalwood as opposed to the Indian variety, santalum spicatum.

In1999, the Indian sandalwood, santalum album, was planted here in the Kimberley. It is a tropical plant which requires water, warmer climate and the right soils, all present here on the Ord River irrigated plain. It is a parasite so that it needs host trees for it to grow. The sandalwood trees are planted in alternate rows with a fast growing host tree called the sesbania and a ground cover called alternanthera. In the alternate rows there is a whole row of longer term host trees; cassia, cathormium and dalbergia. These we had seen as we drove across the plain but not quite realised what we were looking at.

The sesbania last only for five to six years. The sandalwood roots suck onto the host tree roots where it gets all its nutrients. It will not grow without another tree. When the sesbania dies off, the sandalwood tree root then attaches itself to the slower growing tree roots which have come over to the row where the sandalwood trees are. It takes a mammoth fifteen years for the sandalwood to mature to a point where it can be harvested for profit; the whole tree, roots and all are removed from the soil.

"Factory” is really a misnomer for the establishment we visited because here the tree and root structure are roughly cleaned off of foliage and debris and then taken by truck to the Wyndham Port from where they are shipped down to the south coast of Western Australia, or more accurately to the Mt Romance factory in Albany where cosmetics and fragrances are manufactured.

Given the lengthy growing time for this tree, I can only hope that the end product is mightily profitable because there must be enormous costs during the lead time. We came away from this tourist attraction with little pieces of cardboard sprayed with perfume and a greater knowledge of sandalwood, only the latter to be kept.

It was only twenty kilometres back to Kununurra where we called into Coles to buy a couple of bits and pieces including a newspaper. Yesterday we had been able to secure a copy of Friday’s Australian which had surprised us. How could the same day’s paper get here?

Today we learned that it is flown from Perth but only if there is room on the plane and a will to load it. There was none this afternoon; perhaps we were too early. Instead we settled for the day’s The Weekend West.

We stepped over several itinerants, dark and drunk, to get back to the cruiser and made our way back to this very nice camp. In the pool we met up with a European woman who is currently working in mental health, counselling aborigines with alcohol problems. It seems to be a lost case here in the north despite the millions and billions being thrown at the problem. We lay in the pool discussing this terrible problem until we were all pruned and cold, having arrived at no solution.

The sausage sizzle is being given a miss; we are enjoying the excellent television reception and beautiful vista out through our windows across the lake. My husband is particularly happy to have ABC and SBS available and very happy to be away from our previous camp.