We left Broome at about 8pm and had a lovely overnight bus journey for 14 hours to get to our next destination - Kununurra, where we stopped for one night to break up the journey to Darwin. The hostel we stayed in was called the Kimberley Crocs Backpackers and is definitely the nicest backpackers we've stayed in so far in Australia. For $70 we got a deluxe room - pristine with en-suite, air-con, TV and fridge - finally some competition for NZ!! The communal areas were all really cool too, with a pool and funky BBQ spot, done out in a kind of Western Style - rusty old tools hanging from the walls and wooden barrells as tables.

We were only in Kununurra for 24 hours and it was pretty busy as there were a few things we wanted to see . . . .

Firstly, after brunch and finding our bearings we took a walk to the Mirima (Hidden Valley) National Park. It's meant to be a miniature version of the better known Bungle Bungle National Park (which isn't open at the moment, as it's the wet season). We walked through the almost hidden bush trail until we finally came to the 350 million year old orange and black rock formations, surrounded by vast greenery in comparison to what we've seen over the last three weeks. It was worth the slightly pulse racing ramble, fighting our way through eight-foot grasses (fingers and toes crossed that we weren't going to bump into any unfriendly snakes or spiders!!) to get there, although we didn't hang around too long after we'd taken a few photos as we were seriously sweating in the midday heat, not realising until we got back to the hostel that it was 46 degrees!!

When we were looking for the hidden valley we had a brief encounter with some Aborigini's sitting on a park drinking (usual behaviour for them it seems!) and actually they were friendly and helpfully pointed us in the right direction. This is the first time any of them have spoken to us, apart from the odd beggar, and we also had a few 'hello's' from others on our walks, so they seem much more approachable here - not all but some anyway!

That evening we walked to a lookout that we'd read about, called 'Kellys Knob' to watch the sunset - Ok I have to admit part of my interest was partly to do with the name ;-) We almost got lost in the bush on the way there and when we finally made it to the top we were lucky enough to see a rainbow, because, yes you guessed it, it began chucking it down! We scrabled across some rocks to shelter under a small tree during the downpour in the hope that the sunset would be worth it, but unfortunately there were too many clouds below the sun and it simply sunk behind them giving me nowhere near the spectacular shots I'd hoped for - how rude! Nevermind, it was a bit of an adventure for us and it meant that we probably walked about 10km that day! It's been a while since we've done so much walking and I've got to admit it felt really good!

So that was it for Kununurra, a pleasant stop - short but sweet. I don't think you need much time here as it's a pretty small town, but it's worth a night or two for the hostel and the national parks.