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Horizontal Falls
The water's building up! Wow we had the most amazing day today! An aboslute top shelf experience! We have a huge amount of photos too, but will just post a few here becuase its late at night and we are really tired.
The day started at 4.45 am. After getting ready we were picked up in a massive 4wd bus called Big Foot. Off we went onto the Dampier Peninsula on a very corrugated red dirt track. 120 k's of rocking and rolling and bone shaking, we arrived in Beagle Bay. Its a very lovely aboriginal community (dry apparently). There's an amazing church built by German monks in 1918. They made the altar with local pearl shells and it is seriously beauitiful!
After an early morning cuppa and lamingtons we were off again. A further hour and a half of red dirt rockin' and rollin' and we arrived at Kooljaman at Cape Leveque. This is the most amazing coast I have ever seen! The red cliffs are unbelievable and the turquoise beach goes on forever! I think this is the best beach I've ever seen! At Kooljaman we were also treated to an extremely beautiful breakfast too. This restaurant and camp ground is
Horizontal Falls
The boat was revving its motor to stop us being dragged through! It was scary owned and run by the Indigenous community and is fabulous! The cape is the northern most tip of the Dampier Pensinsular and there are many sacred sites here. I cannot say enough about this place and though its a wild ride to get there (or you can fly in), it is a MUST see if you can get up here. I would recommend staying at the camp grounds so you can spend time swimming in that beautiful tropical ocean and exploring the outstounding red cliffs.
All too soon we were back on Big Foot and off to One arm point, to see a hatchery where they harvest the beautiful Trochus shell. Then off to the airport for our sea plane ride. It was a half an hour trip in this rather hot and stuffy plane but the view was incredible. You fly over the Buccanneer archipelago which is made up of over 800 islands. Apparently many pearl divers are buried on some of the islands, in unmarked graves.
We landed at the Horizontal Falls complex in Talbot Bay. This is a site to behold. The McLarty ranges have these two narrow gaps in two gorges that have the
Horizontal Falls
Its hard to show the power of the water as it rushed through the gap tidal waters flowing through at a massive rate. At certain times its like a huge waterfall. Its one of the worlds best natural water flows(according to David Attenborough!.... oh and me!). Our plane landed very smoothly on the water and we hopped off onto the jetty of a group of house boats. Its an incredible resort and so well run. People stay overnight out there too.
Soon enough we were on the jet boats to check out the falls. The water is the most magnificent turquoise colour. Its going to be very hard to explain how beautiful this place is, its close to the most amazing place I've seen.
The tides were pretty big today and the jet boat was able to fly through the first gap, but the second one was too dangerous. The water rushes out so much that there was a 4 metre drop between the two water levels. We still had a lot of fun though and the guy had the boat back up to the gap revving the heck out of the engine to keep us from getting shot out through the gap. It was pretty scary really!
Back to the house
Cape Leveque
The rocky outcrops are so beautiful boats for a BBQ barramundi lunch! The only thing missing was a beer! After lunch we were taken back out on the jet boats to explore the rest of the Talbot bay. Staggering!! not enough superlatives! It occurred due to techtonic plates crashing together millions of years ago, the rock formations were incredible. Then we went back to the falls and the tide had changed and the smaller gap was okay to go through. We had a ball, but our driver didn't take the risks that the other boat did. But it was a hoot! LOVED IT!
Back to the house boat and we changed into our bathers and hopped into a tank and fed sharks! Rob hopped in too! It was great to get cool too, it was really hot out there. The sharks are wild but they know to turn up for a feed of Barra. I got to lean over the cage and touch one (called Bruce) and his skin was quite rough. They were tawny nurse sharks and are known to be quite placid. But they had a mouth full of teeth!
At the end of a very very brilliant day, we headed off
Cape Leveque
My favourite beach ever! in the seaplane for an hours flight back to Broome. This was certainly the best tour we've been on yet. The Dampier peninsula and the Buccaneer archipelego area would be the most magnificent natural area I've seen yet. Stunning.....
Well we will be leaving Broome tomorrow to start heading down the West coast and gradually acclimatising to the colder weather, making our way home. But a lot of good fun to have on the way, and many wonderful sites to see before we get home yet!
Stay warm!
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