Day 38 - Friday 10 August - Lake Disappointment

Day 38

Friday

10 August

Lake Argyle 

After rising early yesterday, I was in no rush to head out do the same this morning. I was still awake early and as Paul was up, we both grabbed our books and read until the hour was a little more respectable. Paul was out first, heading for the shower and I pulled myself from the covers, when I finished the chapter and organised breakfast.

Just before 9am, we took off exploring, keen to find the pontoon on Lake Argyle. We located the hiking trail and began our decent. It was a bit of a goat track, rocky and steep. You needed to ensure you were mindful of your footholds. We stopped to take pictures at regular intervals, as more of the scenery was unveiled to us and eventually we reached the bottom, joining a family on the pontoon. 

We admired the clear blue green water and steep rising cliffs. People were out on SUPs, kayaks and a nice catamaran. After chatting with the family and watching small fish swim by, we then faced the climb to the top, a killer. I reached the top puffing, but relatively energised, Paul wasn’t feeling that great and he collapsed in the chair outside the van, needing to take some time to cool down. 

Once he had recovered some of his energy, we grabbed the Getz and went off to explore the lake. I had said to Paul earlier that it would be great if you could drive the perimeter, but with no roads and a 900km circumference, it was no Sunday afternoon drive. 

We took off over the hill and stopped at a couple of viewing points, here you could see the dam walls the lake and the spillway and it became obvious that fishing was going to be challenging. We drove to a day use area and watched a couple of blokes flicking lures, but nothing was chasing. Paul was disappointed that he was unable to access the water in other spots. 

We returned the park disheartened by the fact that there was all this water and no easy access to it and those that were accessible were busy and not really in the best of spots. They really have stitched up the tourists here. If you want to see and experience the lake you need to walk a treacherous path or pay through the nose for a tour, they have you by the proverbial short and curlies. 

We returned to the van at 10.30am, wondering what to do. We ended up with books in hand and reading. I chose to go to the bar at 11.15am to check the wifi, but there was nothing, so I did a walk of the park and then returned to van, hot and sweaty. I changed into my bathers, left Paul reading and went for a very refreshing dip, which consisted mostly of sitting on the edge, before crab crawling along the pool wall to immerse myself. Not wanting to burn, I returned for lunch at 1230pm.

I made and ate my lunch and then Paul put on “Burnt” a dvd we had picked up along with some mags. We got about three quarters of the way through it before the thing froze. Damn it. We swapped it out for another dvd we picked up last year “The Core.” This movie was so crap it was laughable, I am glad we hadn’t forked out for it, but it killed a couple of hours. 

We wandered down to the bar, to use the internet. I was able to get on this time, but as before it was S L O W and really not worth our time. In the end, we came back to start on dinner. When that was done, we returned to the bar to watch some of the footy. I took the Telstra phone with me and this seemed to receive the wifi signal far better and I was able to see a few new things. 

We didn’t stay for long, as the footy was of no real interest. We made our way back to the van, cranked the AC and sat around for the remainder of the night, eventually crawling back to bed and giving the day the flick.