The Backpackers Guide to WA says:-
This modern East Kimberley town has a population of some 5,000 people
with the youngest average age of any town in Australia, and is the
support centre for the Ord River Irrigation Scheme created
by the completion of Lake Argyle in 1972.
The choice of eateries is excellent with a wide selection of
eat-in or take-away meals available plus the usual counter meals
at the pub and tavern. Don’t miss having one meal of barramundi,
the local game fish, it is delicious!
Kununurra is a tourist’s paradise with well established aerial,
water and land-based tours along with fishing safaris and crocodile
sighting tour available to cater for everyone’s taste.
There are three 4WD tour operators and four air charter companies
specialising in trips to the amazing
Bungle Bungles Ranges.
Amongst the more popular tours on offer are the river cruises
from Lake Kununurra to Lake Argyle and the daily cruise
on Lake Argyle itself.
Either tour will allow the tourist to not only appreciate the
beauty of the Kimberleys but the enormity of the job of the construction
of the dam and the irrigation system.
Just off the bitumen road is the picturesque Ivanhoe Crossing,
one of the features of the Ord River and a very popular fishing
spot.
Returning to town, travellers will pass the “City of Ruins”,
sandstone formations that resemble an ancient city.
The East Kimberley landscape is amongst the most magnificent
in the world with unbelievable sunrises and sunsets that cast
most unusual hues on the ranges and to see the golden web of
the Kimberley spiders strung between trees and shrubs at these
times is something that the tourist will remember for a lifetime.
Originally settled as cattle country, the Kununurra area of the
East Kimberley is now predominantly under irrigation and growers
have had great success with crops of maize, forge sorghum, grain
sorghum, chick peas, sugar cane, rockmelons, watermelons, bananas,
sunflower and miscellaneous vegetables.
Seventy-five thousand hectares of land was made available for
irrigation with the construction of Australia’s largest inland
man-made dam, covering an area of 740 square kilometres at normal
fully supply level and 2072 at maximum flood level, or nine
times the size of Sydney Harbour.
There is a great selection of accommodation in Kununurra including
five caravan parks, a hotel, motel, guest house and two backpackers
accommodation establishments.
Within easy walking distance of town and well worth a visit is
Hidden Valley National Park, which comprises a series of
scenic gorges containing some fascinating rock formations formed
millions of years ago. There is also an abundance of bird life
in the area.
Just a short distance away is “Kelly’s Knob”, from where
there are excellent views over the town, Diversion Dam and the
irrigation farmlands.
When the dam was being constructed it was realised the area would
soon lose one of its most historical buildings – the Argyle
Downs Homestead – made famous as the home of the pioneering
Durack family.
The building was dismantled and reconstructed close to the dam
wall and today serves as a museum for all to see. It’s original
site is part of the dam’s floor, deep below water.
With the abundance of water close to town it is no surprise that
water sports are a popular past-time. Good conditions exist
for swimming in Lake Kununurra where yachting, kayaking and canoeing
are also popular. There is also a public swimming pool in town.
A note of warning – swim only where it is known to be safe, for
this is crocodile country.
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