I’ve never been one to wake up with the birds, but a consequence of camping is that this was exactly what I, and the whole group, did for every day of those two weeks. We arose between 5 and 5.30am, whether we were scheduled to or not. It wasn’t a bad thing entirely, because I was able to watch a lot of lovely sunrises, like the one at our campsite at Kununurra, 250km north-east of the Bungle Bungles.

Kununurra is located by a lagoon that feeds into the Ord River, which we encountered near the Bungle Bungles. It’s a different place altogether, being more tropical in climate. There were a few houseboats, ready for a lazy cruise upstream.

The waterlilies were about the blossom.

Kununurra is the centre for the Ord River scheme, which dammed the Ord in several places nearby in the mid-20th century, forming Lake Argyle, a reservoir that is more than 20 times bigger than Sydney Harbour. We’ll find out more about the lake and dam later on.