This trip is called Jewels of the Kimberley. This morning we ticked off Jewel #1.
A 5:20am pickup, transfer to the airport, and a small seaplane flight for an hour 250km to Talbot Bay and the Horizontal Falls. Two narrow passageways eroded through two rocky spurs with an enclosed bay behind. 40m deep. The incoming and outgoing tides rush through these passageways. The largest is 20m wide, the smaller is 7m. When the water height differential is more than 1m, it’s deemed too dangerous to take boats through.
Quite a slick operation. Two large joined houseboats have 3 reception areas to keep the groups separate. Staff live onboard for 12 days then get a break for 3-4 days when the tides aren’t right. Our plane moored and fairly quickly we were whisked off on a jet boat. Several fast passes through each passage interspersed with lingering and looking. Apparently a half metre difference in height today. Lots of dangerous-looking eddies and whirlpools. I decided jet boating is not for me but the phenomenon is interesting.
then back to the houseboat for breakfast. Watch the shark feeding off the pontoon, Tawny Nurse sharks. then a more sedate boat trip up Cyclone Creek where there are two more houseboats owned by the company used for longer group stays. interesting rock formations (Pentecost sandstone) and then the flight back with views down the coast – Buccaneer Archipeligo, Cape Leveque Have you read Tim Winton’s Dirt Music?
Then the trip proper began the bus really isn’t suited to city streets.
Along the road, the initial scenery was similar country to what we’d just flown over: flat, scrubby, boring. but eventually some cattle (apparently West Kimberley used to be sheep!); termite mounds, boab trees. (The granddaddy of them all outside Derby – some conflicting information as to whether the prisoners were held inside or just chained around the outside.)
travellingkathy 