Day 87 – 14th August – Lake Argyle

This morning was spent checking out the dam.  Here’s the view from the lookout 

Those hills (islands) in the background make it seem like the lake is only small… however when you travel to the other side of those islands and look south the lake is so large you can’t even see the land on the other side… it is phenomenally BIG!

Remember I mentioned this massive lake was created by one measly dam wall?  Well, this is that wall.  Mind-blowing to think all that water is held by that one small piece of engineering… 

We then headed to the Durack Homestead Museum.  The Duracks are the family who first settled and introduced cattle here in the Kimberley.  Sometime around the 1870s, there was this one gutsy Irish guy, named Patsy Durack, who bought up a heap of land (site-unseen) in the newly discovered Kimberley, then proceeded to drive 7500 head of cattle from Brisbane to the North West.  It took him over two years and he lost over half the cattle, but he did make it… points for effort…  Anyhow, Patsy Durack and his subsequent family are an integral part of the pioneering of this region.  Sadly, when they erected the dam wall in the 1970s the water filled up much quicker than they expected and they were caught unaware.  The Durack Homestead, including all buildings and several cars, ended up under water and to this day still sits at the bottom of the lake.  However, a conservation group salvaged this one building, the original Homestead.

Here’s a look at our camp site here at Lake Argyle… would anyone like a sardine?