Tuesday July 3

Have arrived in Broome today and decided that it would be a good move to update our blog with the Derby and Horizontal Falls photos before things get too busy!

On Sunday we did the touristy things by visiting the wharf at high tide to see the difference.  Derby has the second largest tide differences in the world (the largest is in the Bay of Fundy on the east coast of Canada, which we visited in 2010).  Even though the water seems very muddy, it is a popular fishing spot, both from the wharf and the shore at high tide.

We then drove out to the Prison Boab Tree, a boab which is estimated to be 1,500 years old.  It was used to hold Aboriginal prisoners and those being rounded up by ‘blackbirders’ en route to Derby.  The photos of groups of young Aboriginal men chained together with neck chains sent a chill down my spine.  To think we were doing such things to fellow human beings as recently as we were is impossible to reconcile.  Murray and I are constantly amazed by these trees.

Discovered a boab on the median strip in town that was growing leaves already and had a few flowers – I can only imagine that this was because the trees are watered regularly, so they must think the wet had started.  The flowers are quite beautiful – large and white.

In the evening we took our bottle of wine and the camera and settled ourselves on the balcony at the Catch of the Day restaurant at Derby Wharf.  The sunset was lovely, with the wharf and those on it silhouetted against the sky and it pains me to say that the smoke from the burning happening across on the Dampier Peninsula enhanced the colours greatly.  Once the sunset was over and I had managed to stop taking photos, we enjoyed our meal of barra.

Monday morning saw us winging our way over the tidal mud flats around Derby, which are amazing and the Buccaneer Archipelago in a seaplane to the Horizontal Waterfall. 

This natural tidal feature is created by the passage of water through two narrow gaps in bays adjoining Talbot Bay.  The volume of water generated by the huge differences in tide cannot make it through the gaps as rapidly as the tide falls and rises, so the water level on either side can be up to two metres different at the smaller gap.  The two gaps can be seen in this photo Murray toook from the plane:

 The plane landed in Talbot Bay, where the company has pontoons and houseboats moored.  From here we were able to watch large numbers of Tawny Nurse Sharks, plus a myriad of small fish, swimming about.

We were taken through the larger of the two gaps in a jet boat and sat and watched the water racing through the narrow gap. 

From here we had a trip up Cyclone Creek, which I actually found more fascinating than the ‘falls’, as I had been totally unprepared for how beautiful this area would be.  Red King Leopold sandstone ranges meeting the aqua water and in places, green mangroves, backed as always by that magnificent blue sky was stunning.  Parts of the range showed amazing evidence of the uplifting that occurred how-ever many millions of years ago and one area looked as if it had been scrunched up – caused, apparently by the uplifting being accompanied by extreme heat and pressure.

 

The flight back to Derby was via a different route and we had a more extensive view of parts of the Buccaneer Archipelago, which is made up of some 1,000 islands – truly astounding.

Derby Wharf looked so tiny from the air!

We were safely deposited at the airport by the seaplane, which had wheels secreted away in the floats to facilitate this dual capability.  Another exciting day and yet more magnificent scenery – talk about sensory overload!

Must take this opportunity to explain that the strange spacing and odd fonts which occur in these blogs are not of my doing and drive me nuts.  It is all perfect when I click on 'publish', but then things go awry for some reason - very annoying!