Lake Argyle, the Kimberley, helicopter flights: Australia's overlooked man-made wonder

We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.

Advertisement

This was published 8 years ago

Lake Argyle, the Kimberley, helicopter flights: Australia's overlooked man-made wonder

A new tourism venture in remote Kimberley offers a thrilling and awe-inspiring helicopter flight over Lake Argyle.

By Fleur Bainger
Updated
Loading

I've fallen in love – and not just with the man sitting in the chopper beside me. Instead of holding his hand and squeezing it tenderly, I'm gazing dewy-eyed at the vertical valleys dropping away beneath me as we leap-frog over sheer ridges textured by time.

With the air whipping around my door-free cage and the buzz of blades in my headset-cupped ears, I've forgotten he's even there. My heart's been stolen by the endless Kimberley landscape of rusty reds and royal blues that have been etched into the earth over millions of years.

Tracing the West Australian region's dramatic contours by helicopter is one hell of a way to get the emotions pumping. Particularly when the pilot's remit is to gently perch his astonishingly agile steed on a remote rockface inaccessible other than by deftly handled rotor blades. He wiggles the joystick front to back, side to side, settling the chopper's rails onto a base of stone, spinifex and red dirt the way a mother hen might carefully lower herself into a bed of straw. Seatbelts pop and we step gingerly out into a wilderness where humans are very much in the minority – if present at all. This is better than any nature documentary I've seen.

 Newly weds touch down atop a high ridge overlooking Lake Argyle.

Newly weds touch down atop a high ridge overlooking Lake Argyle.Credit: Fleur Bainger

Two hundred-metre drops encircle our unconventional landing pad and I'm dwarfed by a scene that stretches far beyond my peripheral vision, delivering an unexpected moment of empathy for the ants strutting past my feet. Under an umbrella of the Kimberley's scale-defying skies, my reverie is broken by the pop of a champagne bottle. Here was I thinking it couldn't get any better.

Launched last dry season, the romance-infused Secret Springs Getaway tour I'm on is part of local bloke Michael McConachy's dream to provide eye-in-the-sky helicopter access to Lake Argyle, a rugged outback paradise saturated with 18 times the amount of water found in Sydney Harbour. Australia's largest man-made lake is so big it's regarded as an inland sea, studded with islands that were once mountain peaks. Back up in the cloudless atmosphere, we hover above one shaped like a love heart – reminiscent of that famed landform in the Great Barrier Reef. Only this one is fringed with freshwater crocodiles. It's no wonder McConachy reckons more of us should let him sweep us off our feet – literally - to see this little-known piece of the outback.

Lake Argyle was created in the early 70s, its huge dam wall storing fresh water to supply Kununurra's massive Ord Irrigation System. As a traveller's destination, it's been criminally (yet understandably) overlooked for its World Heritage Listed neighbour, the 360-million year old sandstone range known as the Bungle Bungles in Purnululu National Park. Now, with Lake Argyle Resort being steadily developed by second-generation owner, Charlie Sharpe (who's added comfy villas to the infinity pool-blessed camp ground, which perches above the inundated mountain range), McConachy has spotted an untapped resource (excuse the pun). So after buying up the region's two biggest chopper companies in April, securing him some 14 machines, the young developer set about creating a new sky-high lovers' ramble, affording couples the sorts of views and thrills James Bond might leverage to woo his latest conquest. I, at least, am decidedly smitten.

"A flight up the Ord River is stunning and to see the lake from the air is awesome," McConachy says. "I've travelled widely around Australia and there's nothing like these rocky mountains rising from the water in the largest inland lake in Australia. There are some stunning natural icons like the Ragged Ranges and the Revolver Falls, which are the highest falls in WA. In my view, the Ragged Ranges are every bit as good as the Bungles to view by helicopter."

He's biased of course, but he's also right. After drinking in the scene like eagles eye-balling their prey from above, we rise vertically from a mountain peak, briefly hover, then gasp as the ochre escarpment ends abruptly, plunging to a green-tinged understory rimmed with leached orange boulders and grey sands.

Advertisement

Our able pilot, Tim Anders weaves through the Carr Boyd Range, manoeuvring past layers of terracotta rock that bend like French pastries. His eyes crinkle as he grins with each involuntary exclamation we make into our headsets ("Ooh! ahh! Woah…" It's repetitive but genuine). Anders has seen (and heard) it many times before and he knows the spots with the greatest wow factor. Yet there are surprises too: he spies a group of wild brumbies cantering through trees, zeroing in with the chopper like a deft station hand to score us a good look at these elusive creatures. Pulling away, he zooms over to a series of waterfalls meandering between plateaux called Packsaddle Springs, a side trip I sense was not part of the set itinerary, but one he clearly loves revealing.

Back on the ground we return to the honeymoon suite at Freshwater East Kimberley Apartments to untangle my hair and rinse the sweat from our elated bodies. The chic apartments are Kununurra's newest accommodations and another of McConachy's projects. Our back yard is my favourite bit: it holds twin, open-air showers and an egg bath. In the Kimberley's toasty climate we readily nude up and frolic beneath the spray, bare under that big sky but for the four walls around us. And just like that, my man has my attention again.

TRIP NOTES

MORE INFORMATION

08 9168 1101; helispirit.com.au

GETTING THERE

Virgin and Qantas/Airnorth fly from Broome to Kununurra, with Broome serviced by most capital cities. Qantas flies direct to Broome from Sydney and Melbourne.

Departing from Lake Argyle, The Secret Springs Getaway helicopter flight run by Helispirit costs $499/pp (min 2) for a 2hr trip and includes Revolver Falls, the Carr Boyd Range and a touch down at an otherwise inaccessible swimming hole for a romantic picnic.

STAYING THERE

Freshwater East Kimberley Apartments

19 Victoria Highway, Kununurra; 1300 729 267; freshwaterapartments.net.au

Sign up for the Traveller Deals newsletter

Get exclusive travel deals delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up now.

Most viewed on Traveller

Loading