Inspired by reading the blog of a friend of a friend. The magic of travelling along the cost from Broome to Darwin on a small ship exploring and poking about. Can’t wait…

    It’s cold and dark in Wintery Melbourne when the taxi pulls into the drive. Forty minutes later, we roll our bags into the warmth of the airport, check in, coffee, then board a flight North West to Broome, 2000 kms away.

              Same country yet when door opens we all find ourselves squinting into bright blue skies and 30°C temperatures. My body seems to shed ten years of tightness. I move with renewed ease to the airport carousel to retrieve my bag. Broome certainly is a mid-winter elixir.

               Outside is the normal mayhem of any small airport. Bold offers of questionable help, plus there is the everpresent opportunistic hovering on the fringe. We find a taxi and the broad toothy smile of a very dark-skinned man. He tells us he is a New Zealander but belatedly admits to having been born in Somalia. He spends every summery winter here driving tourists around before heading back to his new home in N.Z. But this town is full of similar stories of people who hate the cold moving here from some place else.

             Late afternoon and a walk to Streeter Pier. A short pier reaching out into the Broome mangroves. It’s hot, and the water is a putty grey with mangroves reaching up out of the water. Two teenage Aboriginal girls around 13-14 are dripping wet and full of laughter. A Western tourist offers to film them diving off the pier. They laugh and slap each other, not a care in the world. 

           “We’ll both do a backflip, hey,” they announce in unison. It takes time to build up the courage, and then there’s the theatrics before they finally run to the edge and dive. Well, one spins through the air, the other is looking down into the water, laughing at her friend below. The other looks up, spits out some choice language. She knows her friend has suckered her, but they are still laughing, still the centre of attention. 

             By next year, their childlike playing will have finished. No more diving off the pier. Life will have become more serious, especially for the Aboriginals around here who have a tough life as adults trying to navigate two cultures. 

              Broome is a very spread-out place. With plenty of land, it has grown haphazardly with various local interests jockeying to build their own centre of town. It means you either need a car or depend on the regular bus service which circles a ten klm circuit between the business centre and Cable Beach. 

              The iconic image of Broome is of sunset camels loaded with tourists swaying along the white sands. The photos appearing to show them going on forever. It’s a lucrative business, and tourists readily hand over $150 for the experience. For that, you are guaranteed an hour of gut-lurching, crutch rubbing, and nose twitching from the highly scented dromedaries. As I said, it’s an experience more than a joy ride on these ships of the desert. Instead, we photograph the ungainly procession, then choose to dip and dive under row after row of perfect Indian Ocean waves. Up on the clifftops, a few hundred others simply squint or sit behind sunglasses sipping on coloured drinks. Evidently, the trick is to sip at the same speed as the incrementally disappearing sun on the horizon. 

           A full day’s drive North on the gun barrel straight bitumen road from Broome to Cape Leveque. Sadly, Cape Leveque has been closed to the public for some time. A stop at the pretty missionary church at Beagle Bay, where much of the inside has been adorned with mother-of-pearl shells. Then it’s on to Cygnet Bay and the pearl farm. Pearling obviously has brought much wealth to some in these remote areas. The farm is extensive, with tours, a restaurant, and a shop to unload the tourist of any spare cash in exchange for a tiny pearl fished from an oyster shell.  The farm itself is a series of low-lying sheds amongst the sand dunes. A delicate operation takes place to insert a piece of pearl seed into a shell; they are then taken out to sea and suspended on wire grills. The massive 10m tide fluctuations ensure the shells get good, clean seawater, and the shell slowly builds a pearl. Often over up to four years, so it can be a waiting game. Their return on investment seems pretty good. 

       We leave Broome, ten days aboard the Kimberley Explorer to Darwin.

                I’m excited about the cruise along the Kimberley coast. I was never going to access this remote area by four-wheel drive, so it’s a ship with daily zodiac (a type of powered rubber dinghy) excursions. Either that or David Attenborough documentaries at home. What I wasn’t ready for was the age of my fellow travellers. A sea of grey met us at the gangplank. I checked the brochure; it sold itself as an ‘exploration ship’ with vigorous activities on the high seas and rock climbing on the shoreline. This lot looked like they would be asleep half an hour after breakfast as the first rays of sun hit their chests. Time will tell. 

                Our first zodiac excursion is late afternoon, with clouds and a breeze off the water making it a perfect time to be snooping about the Henrietta mangroves. Birds flit about whilst bright orange crabs scurry about, trying to hide in pale grey mud. The mangrove roots droop down into the salty water like natural straws, seeking life. On the horizon, the cliffs highlight a jagged rock layer, a sawtooth pattern echoing the volatile movement of the Earth’s crust a million years ago. 

               There was a collective sigh when we were told that our visit to the Horizontal Falls would start with a 5 am breakfast and 6 am zodiac trip. So I was surprised to see so many make it onboard the early zodiacs, maybe insomnia has its benefits? We raced across the choppy waters towards the two narrow channels that produce the Horizontal Falls as the sun crept up. Today, the falls put on a tame show as the tides are not at their peak.  During peak tides, the outpouring seawater can cause the brimming lakes to struggle to quickly release this massive buildup of water. Hence the turbulent gurgle of water trying to escape through the narrows back towards the Indian Ocean.

                   Due to the local indigenous mobs frowning on boats passing through the narrows at Horizontal Falls, we simply observe from afar. Then we are off edging our way along Cyclone Creek as the birds swoop and call in the dawn. Commanding cliff faces glow vivid orange/red rock whilst a skirt of muted green mangroves cling to the water’s edge.

                 It is interesting to watch the excitement build amongst the bird lovers on the zodiac. Whilst some of us get excited by Formula One racing or football, there is a particular species of humans whose blood pressure rises at the distant flapping of wings or unusual birdsong. I fall into the interested without wetting my pants tribe. That said, there were a couple aboard who will certainly have to make a costume change when we return to the ship. They, not the birds, are easy to identify. Hanging from their necks is a pair of binoculars and an obscenely long telephoto lens. All the while, sightings are jotted onto a crumpled scribble pad. A cure is yet to be found. 

             I had no idea what to expect out at Montgomery Reef. All I could remember was that it had been a refugee destination for Vietnamese boat people in the late seventies. Actually, it was never an ideal destination as the reef disappears twice per day during the massive tidal changes. The seawater spills in a torrent from the reef as the tide drops away. A huge variety of seabirds paced about, licking their lips in anticipation as the receding water exposed a huge buffet breakfast. 

            Our zodiac drivers needed to keep their wits as the tide made it easy to get caught out. We surfed a channel between the exposed shoulders of the reef in the zodiacs. The water drops away so quickly, you could easily end up floundering, your propeller dragging the bottom. Turtles lifted their leathery necks to check us out. A stately stingray cast a murky shadow on the seabed as it glided on by like some intergalactic spaceship. Thick silver trevally leapt from the water more concerned about the predator chasing them than us nearby. Every time you turn your head, something new breaks the surface. The sea life is abundant here thanks to the coral feeding grounds. The turtles too have miles of seagrass beds to graze on and few enemies.

             I hadn’t made an obvious connection between our explorer type ship and cruise ships. I simply thought the first was just more active. The second more eating. Wrong, an explorer ship means waking before dawn so as to be out and about as the sun creeps over the horizon, equalling sleep deprivation. Luckily, we signed up because at 4.30 am, the zodiacs being lowered into the water would have woken me anyway. I’ll sleep in the next life, I guess. 

           So bleary-eyed, I stood with 38 others in the corridor awaiting directions onto the rubber zodiacs. “Has anyone got a torch?” weren’t the first words I expected to hear from the guide. It was a kiwi joke. He pulled out a torch that could snuff out stars in the night sky and began to separate stars from satellites as we set off.

            Across the inky black water towards the edge of the mangroves. “This is our best place to see crocodiles,” he announced as we drifted in line with the shore. Why was I sitting in a rubber boat peering into the predawn dark? Was it a death wish or a fundamental flaw in my decision-making? I had another hour before dawn to consider that. 

          Meanwhile, we watched batfish leap, and yes, the crew delivered on a crocodile. Its nostrils flare just above the waterline; its body motionless. A lazy tail swish was the only indicator of its two-metre length. It will stay there till the sun finally reaches high enough in this gully to warm the banks. Then and only then will it crawl out of the water, spread its prehistoric body, and recharge its heat bank.

         The birds begin chirping, announcing the sun is about to appear. The two guides immediately go from concern for their passengers to avid bird watchers. Birdsong is identified, giant telephoto lenses are swung in the direction of the sound. A rapid-fire click, which could just as easily be a machine gun, captures the moment. The guides return their attention to us, explaining the many varieties of birds swooping and sometimes perching around us. Andy, the second guide, shows us photos of the birds he has captured with his cannon-sized camera. 

The ship buffeted high seas as we made our way to Ashmore Reef, 320 klms off the Australian coast and a mere 150 klms off the Indonesian coast. It’s been the main stepping stone for illegal boats to make their way to Australia. Our ship’s motion has us lying flat in our cabin from early evening. The thought of consuming anything certainly never entered my mind. By morning, we had reached the reef, and the seas had thankfully died down. 

             So, as the nauseous sensation left me, I was handed a mask and snorkel. This will be a good test, I thought. The zodiacs bounced across choppy water towards the reef and a shallow island in the middle of absolutely nowhere. There were a few spluttering gasps into the mask before I could relax and relate to the steady, raspy sound of my breathe escaping the snorkel tube. Reef snorkelling reveals a wonderland of darting fish, swaying weed, and lush pink coral. There is a hierarchy even down here. The cruising big fellas have the minnows heading for cover, but they too have one eye open for a predator further up the food chain. After an hour of floating like an oversized starfish, we made our way back to the zodiacs. A feeling of fatigue and hunger washed over me for the first time since boarding the ship. 

          I had looked around on the first day, full of dread. Everyone around me seemed ancient. Not just old, but ancient. Was there a plan to tip everyone overboard at some quiet point along the coast? Was there some additional inheritance available if your loved ones vanished at sea? I watched people barely able to step over a vacuum cleaner cord sign up to board inflatable boats, wet beach landings, and walks in rough, rocky terrain. Many must have thought ‘my mind says I can still do it even if my body gave up years ago.’ It was a real eye-opener and a scary view into the future. A world of hearing aids, trembling hands, and footsteps lacking confidence. Oh dear… most of those aboard have the money and belief, but their bodies are surrendering, quickly. 

               A morning zodiac ride a short distance into Vansittart Bay and a pristine sandy beach. It’s only a flat walk from the beach to reach the saltpan, which attracted the eye of a lost Australian pilot during WW2. Having overshot Broome and almost out of fuel, he had belly-landed his DC3 here in darkness. All aboard survived even though a tree had eventually brought them to a sudden stop, ripping off a wing on the edge of the flat. And here it has sat ever since. A reminder of the war that fortunately only brushed against the Australian continent.

                The allure of stepping away from the coast and seeing one of the Kimberley’s big rivers pouring the wet season’s rains back out to sea was certainly a drawcard to visiting this region. To view it from above with the grace of a soaring bird meant handing over wads of money to a local helicopter company. First, there’s a zodiac to an isolated beach where three helicopters lifted us up for a twenty-minute flight inland. Ancient rock as far as the eye can see sliced through with zigzagging ribbons of green. Massive tides push the sea deep into the interior here. Tropical rains in the wet season produce an opposing flow pushing fresh water towards the coast. The Mitchell River in this region, a lifeline to all the birds and animals around here. Those green river banks and nearby thick bush indicates the harshness everywhere else.

              The thud, thud, thud of the chopper blades penetrates your body. There are no doors on the rear of the helicopters. Our progress appears slow, but the force of the wind has my cheeks flapping as I peer out and down. There seems to be a lot of nothing out here. Suddenly, a change— a white wall of water cascading over a series of waterfalls like a frothing curtain. Our pilot turns to give us all an opportunity to admire this inland show. We land in a rising dust on a rocky outcrop near the falls. We all then do this funny walk doubled over away from the helicopters blades. More admiring is the volume of water in such a dry environment it’s hard to fathom. And when the admiration is over, we notice the overhead scorching sun. Time to escape to a pool in the river and float about till it’s time to return to the ship.

              Last early morning zodiac trip, and it’s down the King George River with its towering sandstone cliffs stretching on for miles. The zodiacs bounce around in the heavy swell, everyone aboard grits their teeth and holds on for dear life. A young boy at the front bounces so high his light body lifts clean into the air. Luckily, his older brother tackles him and attempts to keep him from being flung about. We need to keep every young person we have. Once we are further down the river, things settle, and our guide suddenly cuts the engine. He has spotted something; a large ripple broke the surface. We drift about until magically the head of a dugong breaks the surface before lifting slightly. Our guide, Ssh, is beside himself and, having told us we may see them here, admits it’s two years since one has been spotted on his excursions. 

                  We can see how much spotting the dugong has meant to him by the broad grin that won’t leave his face. We spot various birds, lizards, and a croc, but Ash’s mind is still much further back up the river. Fifteen kms upriver, we reach the falls, only running at half strength this late in the season but still a torrential tube of pounding water. He demands we hand over the life jackets before sending the zodiac deep into the spray of the falls. Squeals and shouts follow as everyone is soaked, and then it’s reverse gear and a chance to dry off. It doesn’t take long. We pound along back to the boat with the steady thud of the rubber base on the quickly falling tide. A great way to finish our expeditions. 

                 The ship is in Darwin Harbour at dawn the next morning, we spill down the gangplank to go our separate ways. From here, it’s a short taxi ride to a long-term friend’s house. We chat and hide from the heat until the late afternoon. Darwin at dusk is magical in the dry with a refreshing breeze in the air and a million different birds fighting to be heard. 

                  Away early the next morning for a few days visiting some of the highlights of Kakadu National Park. A very wet summer has meant that there is still plenty of water in the billabongs and a great variety of birds. A noble-looking Jabiru, a one metre tall black-necked stork stands deep in a billabong. It’s a huge bird with an equally powerful black beak. There are high fives when we spot one. 

                  The afternoon highlight was always going to be at Cahill’s Crossing. We arrive with the tide close to low. A floating battalion of extremely large, extremely well-fed crocs drift about, mouths facing downriver close to the concrete spillway. There is at least a dozen of these armour-plated prehistoric animals with their snappy attitude ready to pounce on anything faintly edible. Occasionally, there would be a thrashing commotion and an unlucky fish would find itself being taken in a single gulp.

             The other side of the East Alligator River is Arnhem Land. The Aboriginals are waiting to return home in their four-wheel drives whilst rubberneckers wait on the cliffs hoping for a mishap. A young Aboriginal family venture down on foot with their Dad to see if it’s low enough to cross. I wouldn’t be going anywhere near them. When their truck enters the spillway, they have to wait for a croc to cross as they are a protected species. I doubt the crocs would show us the same courtesy. The rubberneckers miss seeing a mass killing and return their attention to watching the crocodiles downstream just biding their time. 

Alligator River. A bit of a misnaming considering Australia only has crocodiles. The authorities were too lazy to change the name when the big snappers were correctly identified. Three flat-bottomed boats slip out away from the moraine and we are immediately met by a few smaller crocs, cameras going crazy. But it’s the wide variety of birds spotted along the river banks as the heat leaves the day that is truly impressive. 

            Insects and small birds are today’s special on the river menu, and anything with wings is busy. We see another Jabiru standing defiantly; they have been my favourite here. A dozen wading varieties with the added challenge of nearby crocodiles. And above all, the birds close to the river banks are the sea eagles and the bullying brown kites. Just before the sun completely disappears, we spot a few monsters, 5m long with a barnacle-like skin and a tail that carves up the water when swished. Another crocodile, just as big, swerves towards the boat, far from intimidated and far too close for many on that side of the boat. 

           Final day in Kakadu, and we drive from Coinda Lodge to Gumlong Falls. A new staircase has replaced the scramble on rough rocks, but it’s still straight up, and ten days on a ship hasn’t improved my fitness. Thankfully, there is a prize at the top. A series of cascading pools forming a link before disappearing over the edge and dropping down to feed the nearby East Alligator River. The tea-coloured water is deliciously relaxing. Many start by saying they’ll just sit in the shade of a tree. Most soon find themselves up to their necks in water, peering over the edge of this ancient escapement that goes on forever.  

            And soon enough we are back from Kakadu into Darwin. Just in time to attend a handful of shows at the Darwin festival. The acts and setting are all first class. Each night artists would come out onto the stage to stare out at a full chaired audience and then up into the open sky sprinkled full of stars. They would smile, often mesmerised. I don’t think some had ever performed out in the open but when nature’s air conditioning gives you a perfect 25c each evening why not ? Six shows, three days and on the final night straight to the airport for a midnight flight.

          The size and breadth of my own country continues to amaze me. 

           Get out there and give it a slap, Jeff