It was time.
The big drive West was upon us but not before passing to look at the Gregory Tree, a large boab tree engraved with details from Augustus Gregory’s expedition 02 July 1865. The expedition was the first main venture by Europeans searching for good pastoral lands in and around the Victoria River and eventually back to the eastern states. The tree’s details contains information about the creation of an iron gorge and hidden letters in case of problems with the rest of the expedition. The camp was at this location for 9 months.
Following the reports of the expeditions, land was bought up and divided into many properties dealing with cattle, sheep and crops.
183kms west is the border. It got rather exciting as WA is very strict on the import of fruit and veg to prevent damage to the massive agricultural and horticultural industries further west. Frantically cooking onions and peppers before leaving, it looked as though we had become fried onion importers! Fortunately we’d been briefed many times by veteran border control travellers. Honey was the only other major problem, but strangely even if the seal hadn’t been broken?
As with going through Customs, it was very nerve-racking even though we knew nothing incriminating was on us. The chap wanted to look all over the van constantly enquiring whether we had anything that we might want to dispose of and then after 10-15mins we were through!
Officially in Western Australia now…yippee!
Lake Argylle was our first stop as we’d heard many incredible stories about it. Keep posted…#
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