We are writing this blog from Warmun – Turkey Creek which is 200kms south of Kununurra on the Great Northern Highway while waiting for a flight to take us over The Bungles Bungles.
We left Kununurra yesterday planning to visit Wyndam but were disappointed on the accommodation we had planned to stay at so we decided to go on to Warmun instead – a roadhouse with caravan park and community.
Kununurra Toad Busters are very active in the Kununurra and surrounding areas. We became aware of them from flyers and their stall at the Kununurra Saturday Markets. They told us that the dreaded cane toads are now 107kms east of Halls Creek so we decided to join them Monday 27th July for a toad bust. The Toad Busters turned up at our caravan park with a bus filled with 12 other toad collectors. The collection site that night was 70kms east of the town at a dam on a property. We were given gloves because the toads wee over you when grabbed near their glands and long handled grabbers like those used to pick up rubbish. Organizer Ben said that 500 toads had been collected previously from this site and over a week they have collected 8,500 toads. That night were expecting to collect less. In fact we ended up collecting only 221 which is great. The toads were then taken to a collection point where they were gassed and had disinfectant sprayed over them to ensure that they were dead.
Details of the toads were then recorded from their sex, size and even stomach contents etc. Ben said that the Kununurra Toad Busters were the only group to collect this detail. He said that this gave them an indication of how long the toads had been in the area, what they were eating or not eating and if they had the Lung parasite in their system.
The pictures below are of Ivanhoe Crossing a popular 4WD crossing just out of Kununurra, views over the town from Kelly’s Knob and the Kununurra Markets where we signed up for the Toad Bust.
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