Broome to Horizontal Falls and Cape Levique

The days are sunny and glorious every single day, with cool nights.  Its a fine place to be stuck for a while.  We shop and swim at the pool and generally muddle about most of the day with meals etc.

 

Yesterday we went to The Horizontal Falls and Cape Levique.  Its a full day from 5 am to 5.30 pm. It starts with a 2 hour trip on a float plane that takes off from the airport.  We land on the water at The Horizontal Falls.  There are many pontoons and all different kinds of boats and hospitality areas, shark and fish feeding cages, jet stream boats (600 hp), with sea planes (on skis) coming and going throughout the day. It was the best organised thing we have ever seen. Nobody is idle for a moment as hundreds of tourists fly in and on and out.  The staff feed large colourful fish by hand.  The area is made up of the mainland, and hundreds of island sitting like islands of meringue on the beautiful aqua blue waters. The scene is breathtaking, reminding me of Alaska in many ways. There is complete serenity.  Even the large sharks which swim around the pontoons continuously, do not seem dangerous, although they are.   The food and hospitality is beautiful.  We were taken up a couple of rivers to see the cliffs, some at 90 degrees to the water when they were thrust up from under the ocean many eons ago.  The day moved in quick order. 

 

The Horizontal Falls are caused by a massive build up of water between the mountains at high tide.  The water is forced at tremendous pressure through a narrow gap in the mountains to let it out.  We rode up and down one of these three times.  They could not do the smaller one while we were there, due to the higher water being about six foot higher than lower water, with a narrow opening, it was much too dangerous to take us through.  Later in the day it would have been quite accessible as the tide fell.  We flew over the Buccaneer Archipelago, a very scenic flight with many islands in the beautiful ocean below, landing at One Arm Point, and being driven a short distance to Cape Levique. We photographed the lovely beaches with the yellow wattles and the fine white sand surrounding the very blue ocean.  We were provided with a lovely lunch, then it was time to take the 4 WD vehicle to Beagle Bay ("Bran Nu Day" fame) followed by the 3 hour drive back to Broome.   The road was red bull dust with some corrugations and bumps.  It was cut deeply down into the earth and I'm sure in the Wet, it would be a raging river.  We had two hours on the bumpy road and glad to finally get to Broome.  It was an adventure all of its own, really.  The crowd we were with were delightful company  (ten people in our group).

 

We got some photos of Town Beach at high tide, showing off the lovely colours of the scene. We lunched with the church family overlooking Town Beach and in the evening we celebrated Solomon Islands Independence Day, which was fun.

 

Right now it seems that the ship is taking the live cattle trade animals at the long, narrow wharf.  Approximately 18,000 cattle go out at one time and it takes 36 hours to load them.  They are well looked after and on-lookers are not permitted too close.  Tonight we saw a destroyer and an accompanying smaller vessel running down the WA Coastline.  Perhaps they were looking for Boat People.

First Horizontal Falls

Approaching Horizontal Falls

Beagle Bay RC Church with Mother of Pearl Shell

Cape Levique

The rough road home, 90Km

Horizontal Falls

Float plane

Horizontal Falls

Horizontal Falls

Island in Archipeligo

Our Bus

Sharks swimming around our pontoon

Town Beach, B roome & ship at wharf

 

Broome - sunset, Moon rise, China town and birds

Yes, we are still sitting tight in Broome.  Another beautiful, sunny day, however it was a cold and windy start.  Last night we captured Staircase to the Moon for your enjoyment.  Fortunately we did a dry run the night before and found out we needed lots of warm clothes on.  So last night we had everything we needed and watched everybody else wish they had more clothes on as well as a tripod for their camera in the nearly dark conditions.  I think everyone was amazed to watch the lovely spectacle of the rising full moon reflecting off the exposed mud flats at extremely low tide, creating the illusion of stairs reaching to the moon.  The spectacle will be repeated tonight and tomorrow night, an hour later each night.  The event occurs between March and October along the coastline of Roebuck Bay, Broome.  The local market stallhalders will be there for two nights, some serving up beautiful Asian meals.

 

The place we watched from is a tiny finger of land reaching out into the sea.  Everyone crowds on to this little promontery, as well as scattering along other places of the coast to watch the event. There is a lovely water park there for the children to play in, a nice cafe and an old cemetary on the highest point.  Other viewing spots are the Mango Hotel and the golf course.

 

We have been fortunate to be loaned a little old car for our use from one of the church members.  Firstly we had a new stop light fitted to it and it has a wondrous way of getting into reverse that we have not seen before and the blinkers are on the LHS and it has a few little dings in it.  Nevertheless, Graeme is becoming adept at driving a manual car and we are so grateful.

 

We had a phone call from NRMA today and they will be paying our rent at the SDA Overflow van park until nearly the end of July, or however long it takes to get our Ute fixed.  We will move there on Monday morning.  Now, we are able to think about visiting some of the tourist attractions and taking a beautiful flight to the Horizontal Falls and other places.  So keep tuned for the next exciting adventure.

 

We also had the comforting information that one of spare parts will come at the end of next week and the others a week or two later, so we are enjoying some peace of mind that something is being done to get our vehicle back on the road.

 

Graeme has started working on his tax return, we swim most days at the town pool. The rest of the day goes into meals, business or shopping.

 

We have included a photo of the Sunset the night our utility broke down. It has been the best sunset so far.  Chinatown is like the main part of town.  It is full of Pearl shops, so alluring.

 

Birds at Tarangau Caravan Park, Broome

Several Moon rise photos on 4th July 2012,

in reverse order, look at the bottom ones first

China Town, Broome

 

Broome and Bust

We arrived in Broom via tow truck.  The ute burnt out the front dif. due to a malfunction in the controller.  The main controller and wiring harness is not available and they have to be manufactured overseas which is an indictment on Mazda and Ford. In the meantime, the local dealer has not yet lodged our Warranty claim, so nothing else can be done until that is done.  We are still in our van near Cable Beach. Our booking is for two weeks, then we will probably have to move.  Population  of Broome is normally 10,000, but now, in the tourist season, it is 20,000.

 

 EXTRA!   EXTRA!   Today, Monday, we received permission from Ford's Warranty Manager to approve the work that needs to be done on our ute.  He rang the local company and gave them the precious Warranty approval number, so now we can move to step 2, to order the parts needed to do the job. The local company is not coping with the huge influx of jobs, with the tourists, and the staff seems to be taking it in turns to have nervous breakdowns!

 

 Broome is beautifully warm with blue skies every day, and few signs of clouds.  Sometimes the nights are chilly (15 degrees). We swim each day at the town pool. However, the beach is the most beautiful shade of turquoise as you will see from the photos.  Many people go to watch the sun disappearing over the western horizon, as it travels on its merry way to some other place.  The camels take riders at 3pm and at sunset. It is such a ritual here.  The 4 WD vehicles drive down on to the beach by the hundreds to watch the sunset and the camels. There is a nudist beach at the far end of the camel ride! Cable Beach is pure white sand and is in a big horse-shoe shape.   Lots of sand and lots of very high tides.  Staircase to the moon happens this week. They seem to be expecting thousands to turn our for that, even though it happens each month.

 

Broome is on a peninsula and there are two main beaches, Town Beach and Cable Beach. There is also a shipping terminal on the Town Beach side.  We saw many trucks arriving with hundreds, or more beasts to be shipped overseas as live exports.  The huge trucks, double story and with 2 or 3 trailers behind, drive right down the pier and can turn around there, as they unload the animals.  Lilies: Lying on the ground we see these beautiful lilies. The plants they grow on, look like Gymea Lily plants, but when the strong stem grows tall, it falls over and the flower heads may be quite a distance from the mother plant.  This means that you see these lively lilies lying in the most unexpected places on the ground and you think they must be plastic, until you realize where they have come from.  Birds: We have seen lots of beautiful birds. We don't know really what the birds are, you can inform us if you like.  I just felt the "Cuccoo Bird" looks like a face that only a mother could love, and he makes me laugh.

 

We have had the most fabulous support from everybody around us, firstly here at the van park but mainly at the church, where they offered us a vehicle to use, a place to park our van and a hoist with 3 mechanics to take care of our car.  However, without the spare parts, we can't do anything very much.

 

The history of the Pearling industry here is very important.  It has a checkered history, between the Chinese, the Japanese and the whites.  There are pearl shops everywhere. Now there are only 20 pearling luggers left. There used to be hundreds after the pearl shell, but now the oysters are seeded, the pearl itself has become the main object of beauty and  desirability. Broome also suffered Japanese bombing attack on 3/3/42 and 140 people were killed.

 

Camels on Cable Beach

Camels on Cable Beach

Cuccoo Bird

Green parrots at Derby

Lilies

Shipping terminal seen from Town Beach

Sunset at Cable Beach

Camels at sunset at Cable Beach

Sunset at Cable Beach

Town Beach

 

Derby - Windjana Gorge & Tunnel Creek

Derby is a small Aboriginal town. The Aboriginees seem to be well integrated into society, though there are always problems.  All who live there, agree it is a very social town and many prefer to work in Broome for the week and drive home to Derby.  A lifeguard travels twice a week from Derby to Broome to go on Lifesaving duty on Cable Beach (220 ks).  He is in charge of the nurses at Derby Hospital. I found a beautiful pool to swim in at Derby.  I was there with about a dozen or so Afghan Detainees from the Curtin Air Force Base, which is currently acting as a Detention Centre (800 detainees).  The runways there are 5 km long, to take the biggest planes.  They are increasing the size of the Detention Centre.  In war time, I'm sure they would quickly be evacuated if the base was needed for war. They detainees had four guards with them, one a young woman who had a Bronze Medallion, as most of the Afghans dont swim well, so they received a lifesaving device around their waists.   It was hot and they all enjoyed themselves at the pool and were happy to chat and practice their English.  All were about 22 years of age and looked like nice young men.

 

The biggest shock at Derby was the ocean is red.   It is 50% Kimberley red mud mixed in with ocean water.  Its not safe to get into it.  Derby has the highest tides in the World at 13 metres. This means the town is surrounded by mud flats where the tide spreads out all over the place when it is high tide.  It looked a little bit like Wyndham where five rivers empty out into the sea and the mud flats go as far as the eye can see.  There are islands beyond Derby where the once again returns to blue and the ships go out for weeks at a time to fish.  There is a French fish and chip shop on the long promenade out to the shipping terminal where they serve yummy food.  Their Air Conditioning system consists of hundreds of tiny sprinkler heads around the roof of the building, which spray the clients every two seconds with cool water. It works very well.

 

Graeme decided to take a bus tour out to Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek.  The bus was a big and sturdy 4WD vehicle, which can tackle the Gibb River Road.  He had a great day out there and the pictures will tell the story.  The Prison trees were used by the Police in olden times to hold mostly Aboriginees, as a resting place, overnight.   What a terrible experience for them - all chained up, some by the neck.  Some of them were taken as divers for the pearling interests in the earliest times.  Derby used the Boab trees as street plantings down the main street.

 

Tunnel Creek

Windjana Gorge

Windjana Gorge

Boab tree

Crocodiles at Windjana Gorge

Tunnel Creek

Tunnel Creek

 

Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing

Halls Creek is another Aboriginal town with a small variety of shops. Despite the dusty and arid van park, we did enjoy their refreshing pool for a few swims.  We drove out to see the China Wall, which was a wall of quartz, about 30 feet high.  You just wonder how such things got there!  We were travelling on dirt roads.  We also found a real billabong there with beautiful river gums.  We drove on and found Caroline's Pool. In his hey-day Halls Creek was the gold capital of WA.  Gold was first found in WA at this place in the 1800's and up sprung a large town.  The river is still flowing beautifully there and all is green.  The old town was fascinating and we saw the building that used to be the Post Office, a large building made of mud brick, still standing with its ornate fire place also of mud brick. There is a strong history there of The Inland Mission and the clinics that the nurses ran for the mission.  There is a rather destitute caravan park still out there. The sun was setting and we came back the next day to try and get a few photos in daylight.  Caroline's pool used to be the picnic and recreation centre for the old town of Halls Creek.  It was truly beautiful.  I don't think we quite captured the feeling in our photos.  It is a large, deep expanse of river water, which dries up a bit in summer.  People were camped there with vans on the sandy creek bed.  No crocs, apparently. and people were enjoying a swim.

 

We bravely carried on to a romantic sounding place calls Palm Springs.  Well, it was a bit of a surprise, not what we expected, with half a dozen young folk swimming there, then Aboriginees came and had a dip there also.  The road was pretty bad, and on the way home we got a flat tyre. Graeme did not know how to get the spare from under the truck, where it lives.  Within seconds of us stopping, two couples stopped to help us and took over the job, got the spare out, changed the wheel over, while the two girls chatted to me and kept me company. They were Jehovas Witnesses and we were glad of their kindness.  They also suggested where we should stay at The Lodge, Fitzroy Crossing.   We had the tyre repaired,   We need stronger tyres for the outback roads.

 

At Fizroy Crossing we found The Lodge, which is about 5 star accommodation.  Everything is built up high off the ground, because the Fitzroy River floods up very high and it is on at least one side of the van park.

It is a delightful place to stay.  We firstly took off to cross the Fitzroy Crossing, which is on one of the boundary roads to The Lodge.  We continued on to the barge which carried us gleefully down the Geikie Gorge. It is a wonder all of its own.  The walls stand very high and at the base the walls are pure white (an old coral reef from past times) and above the white are the Kimberley reds and browns towering even higher.  There are about 400 crocks in this part of the river.  They ignored us for the most part.  They are fairly friendly, smaller than some we have seen.   A note about crocks:  When the hatchling crocodiles escape their eggs, they make a noise which alerts all the female crocks that they have arrived.  Any female will come and hunt them off down to the water.  However, many things like to eat little crocks including Barramundi, if they catch one.

 

The Geike Gorge was absolutely wonderful to behold.  Well worth the trip to come and travel on it. We hope our photos will convey a little of it to you. The visitors' shed shows the heights the river has flooded to in various years.   It must be unimaginable to see it in flood. 

 

Caroline's Pool, Halls Creek

China Wall Halls Creek

Creek Crossing

Eagle flying near Fitzroy Crossing

Fire and termites

Geikie Gorge, Fitzroy Crossing

Old marine reef, Geikie Gorge, Fitzroy Crossing

Palm Springs, Halls Creek

Palm Springs, Halls Creek

Geikie Gorge, Fitzroy Crossing

 

Something fascinated me here.  It was the big modern service station.  It has been built of rammed earth.  This is both outside and inside.  The roof over the petrol pumps is held up by four huge logs.  Inside it is as clean as the most newly built modern supermarket would be. The Aboriginees seem to be the best customers. The servo also has two houses built in the same manner, but I could not get a photo of them.  What a cool way to build.