Day 67 - Lake Argyle Cruise

Lake Argyle 

Day 67 - Saturday - 25/7/2026

Today a 2:30 we got picked up for our cruise on Lake Argyle where we got on the boat and met Greg our captain who owned the company. He guided us through the lake and made a turn around an island where we saw our first Short-eared Rock-wallabies, there were 3 adults and 1 joey on the ledge that Greg threw a little bit of food to. 

2 Short-eared Rock-wallabies

Then we sailed over to the dam wall where Greg told us some interesting facts about the dam. He said that the dam was built in three years from 1969 through to 1971 and was suggested to be built by Kimberly Durack and cost the government approximately 24 million dollars to build which is a very small amount considering the massive body of water it contains, the equivalent to the amount of water to 21 Sydney Harbours. The reason the dam was so cheap was because it didn’t use any concrete, they used clay from the river close by for the base and used rocks that they got from the quarry nearby to hold it all together. They got all the rocks by doing what they call a Coyote blast which is where they dig three big holes like Coyotes do and then they filled them up with 1,000 pounds of dynamite. The Durack family were the first settlers to bring cattle over to the north of Western Australia and eventually their family gained enough money to educate their kids and send them to a boarding school in Perth but by the time they were educated and ready to come home they didn’t want to so eventually there wasn’t to many Duracks left. Kimberly died 2 years before the dam was completed in 1969 and eventually the dam was done. By then there was only one Durack left at Lake Argyle named Reg Durack and he stayed at the dam owning a small part of it until he died. At some point in time a someone bought where the people working on the dam lived and turned into a caravan park but it was kind of bad so another guy called Charles Sharp bought it and made it better by adding things, for example he was the one who put in the infinity pool. Eventually he sold it to the Discovery Holiday Parks for 32 million dollars. 

After that lesson cruised over to Crocodile Bay where we saw a few Freshies. Then we went over to the Barbecue Islands called that because there used to be barbecues there but one year, they had the dam reach the highest water level ever and the barbecues got washed away. At the barbecue islands we fed some fish and had some Seven-spot Archer-fish spit at us. We cruised around a bit more until we reached our swimming destination where we hopped in the water and swam in the refreshing water that was 18 metres deep while watching the sunset. 

Watching the sunset

In the water there was also a floating plate of food where we had a little to eat. this was the end of our cruise, so we then started heading back to the bus.

Swimming in the lake

Day 68 - Sunday - 26/7/2026

Today we drove 500km to Katherine for the second time on this trip where we went for a swim and had dinner at the restaurant.

Day 69 - Monday - 27/7/2026

Today we stayed at the caravan park doing nothing except for schoolwork, shopping, swimming and also, we went down to the river to look for the Dollarbird, but it turns out they are a summer migrant to Australia.