Well we have good news on the fridge front, it is has been working all day no problems so hopefully that’s the end of that! The truck is being fixed on Wednesday so today we went and did the touristy thing and visited some stuff. First off was the Sandalwood Factory, this is a relatively new tourist venture and is basically a big showroom of Indian Sandalwood products, a video explaining the growing and processing of Sandalwood and a cafe. The place smelt wonderful! All the Sandalwood is grown in the Kununurra area and apparently there is a world wide shortage of it especially in India as on average the Indians burn approx 1.5 billion incense sticks especially in funeral fires. The Sandalwood tree is a bit bizarre as it needs two host trees to survive, one when it first starts to grow and then a more mature one as it gets bigger, it draws water and nutrients from the host trees which are Australian natives. It makes for a messy plantation! I didn’t leave the showroom empty handed either.

Our second stop for the morning was The Hoochery, West Australia’s oldest legal still and it was all about Rum, which I don’t drink well I thought I didn’t until I had some tastings. The guy who owns it is an American called Spike and he actually runs a huge seed growing business supplying seeds and the rum making is a side project. The building is made almost entirely of recycled wood and is incredibly rustic and has so much character. We decided to do a tour, oh well what the hell it was only $12 each and we ended up being the only two on it. The guide took us on our own little personalised tour which was only supposed to be 30mins but ended up more like an hour and explained the whole distilling process none of which I can remember sorry. It’s a small hands on distillery with with no modern equipment apart from the bottling machine which is the only piece of equipment purchased new. Spike the owner has a habit of acquiring machines or they fall off the back of trucks……..

The ten year old wall.

The Stills

Bottling Machine

Interesting artwork

Just a little sample!

After the tour we went back to the bar for some samples (not included in the price!) Col tried three different rums and I tried one which was actually a Liqueur called Cane Royale and is to quote “A unique blend of Kimberely Cane Spirit with Chocolate & Coffee” and I am now the proud owner of a 750ml bottle of it and I doubt it will make it home! The Hoochery’s other claim to fame is it’s rum fruit cakes so of course we had to try some, although I went for the mango cake (if you know me well you know I LOVE mangoes). The pieces were huge and with cream, we didn’t have any lunch after that, in fact we didn’t eat again till beer o’ clock (or in our case cider o’ clock).

Noice!!

Last stop for the day was the Zebra Rock Gallery. Zebra Rock is a striped rock and only found in the East Kimberley and mined near Kununurra then made into objects and jewelry, it’s quite pretty but bloody expensive! Col liked a set of coasters and holder but at $189 we left them there. The gallery backs onto The Ord river and they have a little jetty where you can feed the fish which turned out to be huge catfish and a couple of other varities and turtles.

Catfish

Turtle

Col and I have noticed that we don’t really fit in up here as we are not grey nomads or a travelling family with young kids or backpackers. Even the magazines are aimed at a different demographic!

Mmm not really our reading material!

The other thing we have noticed is that we are completely out of whack time wise, our body clocks are two hours out. We are wide awake at 5:30am because we feel it’s 7:30am and it’s light so early, sunset is 5:15pm and have been asleep by 9pm. There is a routine to life in the caravan park, everyone is out the gate by about 8am and then they all file back in about 4pm for happy hour by the pool or lake or just in front of whatever they are living in.

Our little corner of the park.