Kimberley's Ord Valley Muster

I'VE wandered out of Kununurra through crackling yellow grass when I spot the cemetery.

valley

BRIAN Johnston discovers life is a pleasure among the ancient landscapes of the Kimberley especially when the Ord Valley Muster comes to town.

Headstones lean beneath boab trees and plastic flowers droop in the sun. Behind railings stands the headstone of stockman John Darcy, who died on 7 May 1910. It is engraved with a sad lament: The troubles of life are many, the pleasures of life are few.

I'm in a happy mood and don't care to ponder this epitaph for long. Life as a stockman in the remote Kimberley in 1910 was hardly a dinner party, but things have changed since then. If the pleasures of life really are few, I might as well pack as many as I can into my holiday.

Joys are not hard to find. I clamber up Kellys Knob (a name deserving of a giggle in itself) to find the sun setting over lush sandalwood plantations and rust-red hills. Later, I find pleasure in bats swooping across the surface of the Ord River and a clotted-cream moon that hovers overhead as I down a gin and tonic at the Kununurra Country Club.

Next day, I trek up Emma Gorge with green-eyed ranger Carly Naughton, an Attenborough of information about the local environment. She tells me that there are no fossils among this landscape, which predates life itself. She points to ripples in the rock and says they're the solidified tidal movements of an ancient sea.

And when we arrive at the top of the gorge, Carly suggests I lie on my back in the water. "Watch the droplets from the waterfall spiral down like rain only from a blue sky," she says whimsically. And so I do, chalking up another simple pleasure. The sun leaves a pink rim on the horseshoe cliffs as I float in wonderment.

In the morning, I'm awakened in my safari tent by the strange hooting of birds, then wander down for breakfast under boab trees that stand like silent sentinels of the ages. Later, I wallow in the warm waters of Zebedee Springs, like Emma Gorge a part of El Questro station. Butterflies float and sunlight filters through towering Livingstonia palms.

Then it's back to my accommodation at Emma Gorge for rack of lamb with spiced eggplant and a fine red wine. Who says you have to make sacrifices in the wilderness?

Next day I head further down the Gibb River Road, splashing through the Pentecost River and turning off to Home Valley Station. My first pleasure here is sunset champagne at a viewing point overlooking the Cockburn Range.

Host Chris Fenech actually Maltese, but a fervent, born-again outback Aussie grins like a shot fox as he pops a cork and conjures up blue cheese and crackers. Venus comes out as the sun sinks and lingers like a pink kiss on rocky ridges.

Perhaps too many champagne sunsets have given Chris his poetic soul. I ask what he likes about Kimberley living and he says he loves the smell of spinifex in the morning sun and monsoonal lightening cracking open the night. Later, after a hearty steak at Dusty Bar, I loiter with other guests around a campfire as smoke rises into a star-studded sky.

Had I dropped dead right them, my tombstone could have recorded that I had a mighty fine time in the Kimberley. But the highlight is still to come. A two-hour drive back to Kununurra next day, and the 30-piece Australian Army Band Darwin is there to welcome me with a medley of popular tunes.

Well, me and a few thousand others, truth be told. Almost the entire town, in fact, plus a few politicians from Perth, stray foreign backpackers and inter-state travellers with dazed expressions and dust in their eyes.

It's the culmination of the 10-day Ord Valley Muster which, despite its name, has little to do with cattle and everything to do with having a good time. It started a decade ago as a simple business dinner in the local community but, like the Kimberley landscape, just kept getting bigger and better.

The Muster is now a 10-day festival featuring over 50 events, from art exhibitions to mining tours, triathlons to rodeos. The Melbourne International Comedy Festival Roadshow is in town. So is Curtis Stone, using local ingredients in culinary demonstrations and chatting with fans over cocktails.

But the best is saved for last: the Kimberley Moon, an outdoor concert featuring major singing acts on the banks of the Ord River. As the Army Band breaks into a foot-tapping La Bamba and the sky turns pink, wine is flowing, crab cakes and prosciutto circulate and guests arrive in tuxedos or gowns. Diamonds twinkle on the necks of the ladies as stars wink back from above.

Along the riverbank, policemen are patrolling: a six-metre croc has been spotted nearby. Casting a leery look into the nearby yucca trees, I scoop up a sun-dried tomato quiche as Bob Evans (otherwise known as Kevin Mitchell, front man of Perth band Jebidiah) takes to the stage.

Then it's time to settle down at an elegant table for crispy-skin barramundi and buttery mash. I'm soaking up the pleasures of the corporate circle but feeling slightly envious of the masses across the way, pulling beer from their Eskies and dancing bare-foot on the grass.

What we're all really waiting for, as we devour our desserts, is rock legend Jimmy Barnes, whose chainsaw voice has bats flapping in the paperbarks and the audience leaping to its feet. Then Vanessa Amorosi stuns the crowd with her superb voice: little pop princess turned rock chick, down to thigh-length boots and tattoos.

High above, a big fat moon illuminates the faces of happy people dancing in this remote landscape on the edge of a vast continent. If the troubles of life are many, we've all forgotten them for the moment, just to soak up the sheer pleasure of being Australian.

The writer travelled as a guest of Mellen Events, El Questro and Home Valley Station.
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KIMBERLEY

Getting there:

Qantas offers flights with partner airlines. See www.qantas.com.au or phone 13 13 13.

Staying there:

Emma Gorge (El Questro), visit www.elquestro.com.au, ph 08 9169 1777.

Home Valley Station, visit www.hvstation.com.au, ph 08 9161 4322.

Kununurra Country Club, visit www.kununurracountryclub.com.au, ph 1800 808 999.

Doing there:

The Argyle Diamonds Ord Valley Muster will be held from May 25 until June 3.

More: www.ordvalleymuster.com.au