Hello lovely people no. 30 (no. 7 in Australia)

We made a decision in planning this trip that we will reduce the distances to (Australian!) bite size chunks, allowing ourselves just over seven weeks, trying not to spend more than four hours in the car on any day, whether getting between places we stay or visiting things we want to see from each stay-stop. This is not entirely achievable and our first big car day is the trip from Port Hedland to Broome: just over 600 Ks, an estimated 6 hrs and 20 minutes. Great Northern Highway all the way, another flat straight road. The landscape and vegetation much as up the coast (low scrub, few trees, no humans, few vehicles) enlivened by a few fences, cattle and – for the first time – birds we think are bush turkey or the Australian Bustard 

We also drive through our first bush fire, flames and smoke but not over a large area. No photographs of that though!

We break our journey at Eighty Mile Beach for a walk and a coffee (the only cafe is at the caravan park which borders the one part of the beach where the access track to it is). The sea is spectacularly colourful, the sand white and, despite lots of parked 4WD for “local” fishermen (they must drive for miles and miles to get here), pristine. The water looks tempting but no-one is swimming. Roberto chats to one of the fishermen – bull sharks frequent these waters and were seen the day before. We watch in disbelief as one woman ventures in but she is unscathed – and doesn’t stay in for long

We arrive in Broome without incident, enjoy another truly spectacular sunset and dinner at a lively beach side restaurant – it is a holiday town

We are up well before dawn the next morning and get ourselves to the airport hangar of Horizontal Falls Seaplane Adventures by 5.30. We have booked a tour and are looking forward to the promised adventure. The first leg is by seaplane to the falls. Alison M gets to sit alongside the pilot. We are all slightly underwhelmed by the journey however: the interior of the plane is cramped, it looks shabby, the pilot appears to have had a charisma by-pass and when he deigns to provide any information about what we are flying over he has a faulty PA and is largely unintelligible. That said, we cruise at 8,000 feet, visibility is good and landing on water is a thrill

Our base for this first part of the tour is a floating hotel (it is possible to stay overnight and some groups spend 3/4 days)

With barely time to draw breath we are whisked off by high speed motorboat to the horizontal falls. What to tell you about the falls? Described by David Attenborough as “one of the greatest wonders of the natural world” the horizontal nature of the falls is created as seawater builds up and exits faster one side of two gaps in the cliff ranges than the other. Am I making any sense yet? There are two gaps in the cliffs, the most seaward facing one is of approx. 20m and the inward/inland sea facing one is of approx. 12m

Our first approach is towards the end of low tide. The phenomenon we witness is that the water cannot flow out of the inland sea through the narrow gap as quickly as it flows out through the large gap; the consequence is a “fall” (today) at the narrow gap of about 4m. Our boat skipper puts us through the wide gap and its whirlpools several times, at speed. It is soooo exhilarating. He approaches the narrow gap and we see the fall. He explains that attempting to go through it would cause the boat to overturn – despite its 4 x 300 hp engines it cannot climb a 4m wall of water! 

Back to the floating hotel for breakfast and then to witness shark feeding. The staff have regularly fed sharks during the dry season (it is closed in the wet) over several years and they apparently have visitors most days. We meet three of the regulars, all tawny nurse sharks: old boy Bruce travelling with tiny golden trevally, senior Steve, who is grabbed by his fins to demonstrate his equable nature (!!) and familiarity with those who feed him, and finally junior Jack who is grabbed and turned over to display his claspers – in response to a question about how sharks are sexed. The staff member doing all this is careful and relaxed, advises that these tawnys could inflict a serious bite but generally don’t, and wouldn’t kill. We didn’t meet Ellie, the resident bull shark who, we are told, will happily eat us. No-one swims here . . . We are fascinated by the giant trevalley who also appear and, quick as anything, torpedo in and pinch the shark food, tasty chunks of snapper, right under the sharks’ noses

Next up, a sedate cruise along Cyclone Creek. Great cliffs, mangroves, rocks, visible diverse tide lines, cliff-face clinging trees and our first crocodile

And then, back to the falls, just as the tide turns. At the narrow gap the water is now flat rather than falling; there are whirlpools aplenty and we are taken through at huge speed. At the large gap the water is racing and again we are taken through at huge speed. Our skipper’s skill is great and he has all the chat and banter we have come to expect (unlike the pilot). It is all tremendous

A brief pause at the floating hotel and we are airborne again, taking off from the water was as smooth and quiet as landing on it had been. We fly across the Buccaneer Archipelago at 3,000 feet and it looks beautiful but so, so remote

The landing strip is red dirt at One Arm Point. Again, surprisingly smooth. We are then loaded on to a 4WD bus and taken to Cygnet Bay and have a tour of a pearl farm. It is, to me surprisingly, fascinating. A complete mix of low key and high tech, some lovely baubles at the end of the process and in a fabulous setting. We learn how pearls are graded, the five virtues: size, shape, colour, surface and lustre

A thoroughly enjoyable barramundi lunch (the pearl farm also has a caravan/camp site and restaurant) and its back on the bus. Next stop: Cape Leveque. Another astonishingly beautiful, hot, rugged, windswept, empty stretch of pristine beach. And no swimming – such a shame

The final stop on the way back to Broome is Beagle Bay, named in 1838 by a captain of HMS Beagle on a surveying trip of Australia’s northwest coast (a few years after the ship’s first voyage with Darwin). It is on the tourist map because of its church and, more especially the church interior. The history of Christianity in the very indigenous region is Victorian-era missionary driven and with mixed success. But Beagle Bay was the site of internment of all Germans in this corner of Australia during WWI and, history has it, they decided to build a durable church modelled on a photograph of a country parish church from Germany. The interior is decorated with shells, mostly mother of pearl. It is incongruous in its setting but appealing and well visited

The trip back to Broome from Cygnet Bay by the 4WD bus is, including the two stops, four hours of bone shaking, filling loosening rattling over unmade road. Our driver Cob – another great character – takes most of it at a lively 110 Ks an hour. It is dusty and feels long but is a good experience of this remote part of WA. What a day is has been

A gentle day in Broome follows. Roberto and I want to have a sunset camel ride on Cable Beach but all camels are booked and we are thwarted in our wish. Pearl shopping occurs. We eat, drink and relax while readying ourselves for the next, and possibly most adventurous leg, of our road trip. But that is for another time

Until then, g’day to you all

ALISON 

PS: the two maps below show our route from Port Hedland to Broome via Eighty Mile Beach and then, as much as I could persuade Google maps to do so, our tour to the Horizontal Falls and beyond . . .