Broome through to Derby

Went swimming at Cable Beach Monday and Tuesday mornings at 7 am; great time for a swim and the water was superb. Not much else to do in Broome - it's a great place if you just want to sit and do nothing but neither of us wanted to do that - we wanted to do things! We went out to Gantheaume Point, hoping to see whales - saw some great rocks against the stunning turquoise ocean, some dinosaur footprints (well copies in concrete as they are only visible at extrememly low tides) but no whales. However we did see a sea eagle nest, full of squawking complaining babies, and the their mum and dad came along to feed them - so that was a bit of a bonus.

We left Broome early the next morning and headed the 230km north to Derby. We stopped in at the boab prison tree and the world's longest cattle trough. Hmmm. This knocked two of the highlights off the list of things to do in Derby even before we got there. Oh well... we went off to see the long jetty and the high tide - this is one of those places with enormous inter-tidal zones - almost 10m at times.

Wednesday, today, we were picked up at about 9am and taken to Derby airport to fly to the horizontal waterfalls at Talbot Bay. The flight was fantastic - in a little single-engined deHavilland seaplane -we got a fantastic view over all the mudflats around Derby. Sounds boring but they really are beautiful. Landed on Lake Talbot after several flyovers of the horizontal waterfalls. What are these horizontal waterfalls you ask?

Located deep within Talbot Bay in the Buccaneer Archipelago are the Horizontal Waterfalls. Massive tidal movements create a waterfall effect as water banks up against one side of the narrow cliff passage, to be repeated again on the turning tide.

The twin gaps are part of the McLarty Ranges, which have two ridges running parallel approximately 300 metres apart. The first and most seaward gap is about 20 metres wide and the second, most spectacular, gap is about 10 metres wide.

On a slack tide it is possible to drive boats through the two gaps to the bay behind. The tides in this area have a 10 metre variation which occurs over six and a half hours from low tide to high tide and vice versa. The effect of the waterfalls is created by the tide building up in front of the gaps faster than it can flow through them and there can be a four metre high waterfall between the bays.

The waterfall phenomena has been described by David Attenborough as "one of the greatest natural wonders of the world".

We got onto the boats, which are superbly luxurious, with flatscreen plasmas and lovely beds! We should have stayed overnight!!! Anyway, after a wander around we went off on a boat to Cyclone Creek. Cruised up there, admiring the rocks and the beautiful colour of the water. Lovely and relaxing, but no swimming as there are lots of saltwater crocs in here, not to mention hammerhead sharks, tiger sharks and sea snakes. There were also supposed to be turtles and dolphins but we didn't see any :(

Back to the boat and lunchtime - superb barbecued fresh barramundi, spuds and salad. Then a couple of hours just sitting around talking and watching the wildlife.

Oh did I mention that we couldn't go swimming? Well after lunch we saw one of the best reasons for this - 8 or 9 bronze nurse sharks... swimming around the boat, waiting for scraps. Yes alright they aren't huge scary sharks but are still sharks nonetheless!!

After the sitting around we went out onto the little wave shooter and headed off to the falls. This was absolutely awesome. You can see the water being pushed through the gap in the rocks, dropping about 2m at this point. We went through and back several times, and when I can get photos off the little camera I will post something. But it was great fun and one of the highlights of the trip so far.