July 27, 2022
Day 9: Kununurra day 2
The hostel I’m staying in is right underneath Kelly’s Knob, more poetically Thegoowiyeng, a prominent Kununurra landmark so I set out to climb it this morning. I was not expecting great views after the caravan park lookout in Mirima National Park yesterday but it is higher and much more impressive than that. You can look over the plateau where the rock art is, which felt much more remote when I was up there yesterday.
When I got back down, most of the hostel residents had already left for work except my dorm mates, who were still asleep, Brian from Perth and a older Dutch guy travelling around on a Greyhound bus pass.
Brian is a crane driver who retired when he couldn’t work cause he’s an anti-vaxxer. He now picks up a bit of casual work and is waiting for it to get even warmer before he heads into the NT with a tent. He also doesn’t have a car but was going to hire a moped today.
There’s not a whole lot of options to visit in the radius of a bike or tiny moped so we were on the same route today. But I left first, owning my own transport and stopped at yet another cafe for coffee on the Ivanhoe road. It had a very nice garden. The coffee was fine.
Then I got blown out to the Ivanhoe crossing and joined the crowds watching people drive across the ford.
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Only the pelicans on a rock in the middle and two guys fishing were uninterested in the traffic. Once people started getting drones out to film their cars I lost interest and headed back into the wind. I saw Brian looking pretty funny on a little blue moped coming the other way. The research station Road was mostly lined with sandalwood plantations and a little bit of cotton. It didn’t take too long to reach the Hoochery, Western Australia’s longest running legal still. That description makes me think their illegal still has been running longer. It’s quite an operation. It presents itself as a bit hillbilly, it’s in a big shed with old farm memorabilia and the guy who set it up was called spike. But his children have really worked out the tourist market and it was actually a heaving hipster destination.
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Brian caught up with me after not too long and we sat in the shade waiting out the hottest part of the day looking over the fields watching tour buses stream in. I also tried the mango rum liquer and the “out of the ord” gin which were both delicious.
Luckily the wind seemed to have died down, or the liquor blew me back in towards town. Brian’s moped could only go 50kph and he was pootling down little side roads to check them out with the result being I caught up with him about 3 times on the road. It was interesting to have someone to talk to but the exhaust out of his moped smelled terrible.
Once back in town, I nipped out to the Swim Beach for a sunset dip.
My bike is riding fine but the replacement wheel is still in Sydney, according to the tracking, so I’m going to risk a trip to Wyndham tomorrow. I will leave most of my food and clothes here to cut down on weight.
Today's ride: 40 km (25 miles)
Total: 645 km (401 miles)
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