Day 8 Monday 19 May 2014 Talbot Bay & Horizontal Waterfall.


Advertisement
Australia's flag
Oceania » Australia » Western Australia » Kimberleys
May 19th 2014
Published: May 26th 2014
Edit Blog Post

Day 8 Monday 19 May 2014

Talbot Bay & Horizontal Waterfall.

One of the wonderful features in the Kimberley has been caused by the positioning of the cliffs and hills. Today was going to be one of those experiences. We were going to see these unusual Falls as well as go on a fast speed boat through a section of them.

Just to give as bit of background, the Horizontal Falls is on the edge of Talbot Bay which is located within the King Leopold Mobile Zone. Approximately 1800 million years ago the Kimberley continent collided with the Australian land mass. The ensuing collision caused a massive heating along the boundaries of contact - in effect, the Kimberley's land mass became welded to Australia and thus the Kimberley Region of Australia was created. This caused a great deal of folding and buckling of the sedimentary rocks along the welded boundaries. These geological movements have created some of the most stunning scenery that we saw in the Kimberley.

Talbot Bay is the site of the Horizontal Waterfalls, which is about 20 miles to the east of Cockatoo Island in the Buccaneer Archipelago. The effects of the waterfalls is created by the rapid tidal fall on the ocean-side of gaps in the sandstone cliffs. Waters on the island side of the gaps cannot escape fast enough and so a "horizontal waterfall" is created by the cascades with water levels differing sometimes by several metres on either side of the gap.

We hopped into the speed boat and were going about 30 knots against the flow of the sea water through the gap which was the Horizontal Waterfall. It was phenomenal. It was like going through a rollercoaster. Great fun. Another great experience.



That night the Orion put on a cocktail party followed by an Aussie BBQ. The Philippino crew wore slouch hats and served beautiful BBQ red meat and seafood. Another wonderful day.


Additional photos below
Photos: 40, Displayed: 23


Advertisement



Tot: 0.049s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0284s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.1mb