10 more clicks than yesterday
Despite our rocky start at Kununurra, we managed to breakdown camp & get on the road to Mirama on the early side (lots can happen on "the early side" when you wake up at 5:15).
Mirama (or Hidden Valley) is a small park immediately on the outskirts of town. It has ramps throughout its lower sections so its accessible to wheelchairs & is more easily walked in the wet season. We knew our luck was changing when Chris spotted a Solanum less than 3 feet past the entrance...
Here's Isee and an interpretive sign with the ramp in the background. The signs identified what plant/tree you were looking at and how the Aborginal people used/avoided it. It is really amazing how connected these people are to their land and how wise they are about its flora and fauna. They've figured out which tree barks contain fish poisons, which tree can heal the rash from another, how to use tree bark as an oven or a thermos, etc.
Encountered more beautiful sandstone landscape formed 360 million years ago during the Devonian Period. Sand from Lake Argyle blew down to the area and formed rocky outcroppings as tall as 30 meters (darned spell-check wouldn't let me type metres!). This time, the view was somewhat spoiled by big, white hotel roofs in the distance. You can just barely see a little white patch in the center of this pic as I scooted over as far as I could to block it without losing the view.
Jackson spent some time making his own ochre paint out of crushed stone, though we were fresh out of animal blood to darken the hue. All we had on hand was spit.
Chris found a huge cache of solanum in a gorge that completely blew his mind. These plants were really tall and bushy compared to others he's studied, so the botanist is still out on the exact species.
Chris and one of his collections -- you really need to love these plants to endure their prickly nature. (Get it? They're prickly & from nature...).
We made friends with our camp neighbor Michael & his menagerie. In his camper he was traveling with 2 dogs (Taco & Rex), one cat (Felix), a bird (BB), and a fish (Elvis). He took to the kids & shared some of his toys with them. Below, he & Isee are setting up a turtle trap baited with sausage. 
After about an hour in the Ord River, Jackson pulled up the trap to find a turtle party -- 5 Victoria River turtles!! Michael proceeded to chuck each of these in the direction of our ankles to see how we'd react. Let's just say the ladies were doing a bit of dancing...
Here's Chris' makeshift lab outside the truck:
Close-up of fresh solanum fruit -- these started out with white flesh when Chris cut them open, but quickly oxidized and turned red.
After processing all the fruits and putting all the plants in the plant press, we walked down the Sunset Strip (that was the road our camp was on) and went to a fundraiser dinner put on by the camp owners. We had oysters, prawns, threadfin salmon sandwiches, & rice salad. Dee-lish!
The next morning, while we packed, the kids swam in the Ord River, using a pandanus tree as a diving board & made friends with a northern laughing tree frog.
Jackson & his new best Australian friend both painted themselves with red mud from the riverbank.
Ended the fun & packed everyone in the car for a 3-hour drive to Turkey Creek Road House. On our way to the Bungke Bungles!
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