Another fab 2 weeks in Kununurra

It is amazing to think back and realise that we have now been away from Melbourne for 7 weeks and in Kununurra for 6, it feels like such a long time ago. As we listen to what is happening in Melbourne with the latest Covid outbreak, we are extremely grateful for this opportunity and are so pleased that we were able to leave when we did. We are getting very settled into life here and are finally able to make our way around town and know where things are located.

The 2nd week of the school holidays was spent mostly hanging out around the caravan park, however we did have one day that we claimed the car for the day and were able to visit the local sandalwood store and zebra stone gallery. Otherwise it was lego, swimming, bike riding and, for me, uni work began.

I also had an interesting couple of days helping out in the caravan park office. On Wednesday I had offered to begin the process of reprogramming the boom gate passes, a job which the manager was hoping to have done for ages. Well, day 1 and I overloaded the system requiring us to get the electrician out on Thursday morning to fix it (it was totally fixable). I then spent the rest of that day and the next reprogramming and labeling all the cards we had available.

By the time I had also spent Saturday morning in the office while cards were exchanged and then we did our weekly food shop we got a bit lazy and didn't really get out to do any of our usual weekend explore. It was however nice just to hang around doing very little for a day or so. We weren't completely lazy. In our usual manner of not accepting things the way they were and being addicted to renovating, Dave did spend some time installing the new fold down bench onto the side of the van which arrived in the mail on Friday and is now working a treat.

Monday rolled around and it was back to school for the girls and my first official day as receptionist in the park office, I even managed to get through the day without mucking anything up or breaking anything! As much as I love my teaching, I must say it has been a nice change just to answer phones, make bookings and check people in and out. It's a great way to meet lots of interesting people.

On Tuesday night we had our first visit with the local scout group. Being only 12 months old, Elly and Charli are well and truly the most experienced scouts in all of Kununurra and their experience is already being put to good use. It's really interesting to see how another group works and we will all learn from each other as I bring aspects that I am familiar with while they teach me about how the new program works. And weirdly our scarves are almost identical!

This weekend went back to being busier. Saturday we helped the scouts out with their sausage sizzle and car wash. Coming from Melbourne and the Bunnings BBQs we are used to it seemed bizarre (we cooked a total of 3 trays of sausages and that was considered good) but it was a fun morning.

Today we went out exploring (once we got out of bed). We had been told of a secret local place called the butterfly cave and we decided to see if we could find it. Lots of driving with very vague directions later we were becoming frustrated that we were unable to locate it until someone pointed us in the right direction.

It didn't disappoint. The underside of the rock wall was covered in butterflies and it was a sight when they all took flight. I had to take a video as the photos were not capturing it. We then cautiously entered the cave itself to have a look. There are crystals in the walls at the back which we were able to see thanks to the advice to take a torch. There were no bats in residence today but we did see 2 snakes and then very quickly decided it was time to go.

From there we followed our next set of vague instructions to find an area recommended by the guy who filled our gas bottle at Home Hardware where we were told we could find amethyst. We found ourselves on 4WD tracks which took us to some beautiful places on the banks of the Ord River (no crocs in sight). After a couple of stops we discovered the area to look for the amethyst and found an array of beautiful stones, one which I would love to hang on a necklace, it's stunning.

This week my birthday will roll around so we are spending next weekend away in Wyndham where we are hoping for wood fired pizzas for dinner Saturday night!