First stop was Ivanhoe Crossing,which is where the locals go fishing for Barramundi, it's about 10 kms out of town. It was once part of the main road to Wyndham, but was flooded after the start of the Ord Irrigation Scheme in the 1960s, water flows over the Crossing all year round and during the wet season the water level is too high for vehicles to pass. Standing on the Crossing to go fishing is not recommended due to the crocodiles, but of course you always get some people risking it.
Second stop was The Zebra Rock Shop....
The world of rocks and minerals has many puzzling and interesting areas for exploration but only a few of them have caused as much bewilderment as a mysterious rock type found in the Kununurra district. The Rock is known as Zebra Rock.
Zebra Rock is a very attractive fine-grained siliceous argillite (indurate siltstone or clay stone) with rhythmic patterns of red bands or spots contrasting sharply with a white background.
As yet, it is not known how the rhythmic and regular patterns were formed, but it is known that the red portions are coloured by ferric (iron) oxide.
The age of Zebra Rock has been placed at 600 million years...The only known deposits of Zebra Rock in the world have been found near Kununurra... Digging is difficult because of the shale surrounding of the reef. The best implements to use for the extraction of the rock are crowbars and picks.....The Rock is a fine collector's item and has many beautiful rhythmic patterns, which vary considerably, but the rock is too soft to polish. The rock is simply rubbed back with sandpaper, then left or sprayed with a clear lacquer to give a "wet look".
The Zebra Rock Gallery.. Had extensive display of sculptures and jewellery...all of which were very expensive... we enjoyed looking but sadly we didn't purchase anything...
We also went for a walk down to the river at the back of the shop where we saw a beautiful peacock....
And at the jetty we fed the cat fish and the turtles...
Third stop we saved till last was "The Hoochery"
Owner, developer and farmer Spike Dessert fell in love with the Kimberley when he saw it in 1972. In 1995 with the onset of Sugar Cane being grown in the Ord River Valley, he saw a way to diversify his dream and created the Hoochery - the oldest continuously operating distillery in Western Australia.
Now if you are wondering about the name Hoochery - well the name was trademarked by Spike from the word Hooch which goes back to the Hutanuwu (later modified to Hoochinoo) Indian tribe of Alaska who made alcoholic liquor - this is until it became the more popular name for the illegal activity of bootlegging!
Built on his farm just outside of Kununurra in the heart of the beautiful Ord River Valley is a small pot distillery, which has the capacity to produce over 50,000 bottles of Ord River Rum a year. The Rum is thought to be the very first Rum ever produced in Western Australia and is gaining an excellent reputation for being a genuine traditional premium rum.
The Hoochery stands proud at being a 100% Australian owned and operated family business and wherever possible using locally grown ingredients. Ord River Rum is made from local sugar cane, Wet Season rainwater and yeast that is all vat fermented, pot distilled, aged in Oak barrels and hand bottled.
They had samples that you could taste and of course John was on the front line...One of the rums he tasted was what they called a Barrelling Strength Rum, this is bottled straight from their aging barrels at 128.1 proof and bottled... nearly blows your head off !!!! you can purchase a bottle for $143.00.
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