Red dirt and sunsets

It’s amazing how quickly a day can get away from you. Allow yourself a bit of a sleep in (you are on holidays after all), by the time you’ve had breakfast and walked down to the coffee shop, the morning’s basically gone. Maybe a quick outing into town, but then lunch time is looming. You need to make time for an afternoon nap (was a big day yesterday)…and then BOOM!…you’re running late for nibbles and drinks on the beach for sunset! Hectic.

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We were sucked into this rhythm for just under a week making Broome our longest stop on the trip so far, but eventually we were able to break free and head up to Cape Leveque and our campsite at the magnificent Pender Bay.

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Days were about exploring the beaches and the amazing red cliffs that frame them.

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The nights were all about sitting around the fire and watching as the colours of the landscape change around you.

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The region is famous for its pearl industry and the much acclaimed Australian South Sea Peal. Cygnet bay is just around the corner and we went to check it out.

This is the third tour we have done with a marine biologist, and they have all been excellent – the kids totally engrossed in learning about the ocean and the plants and animals she supports.

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The only other activity that wasn’t ‘nibbles and drinks at sunset’ that we embarked upon during this whole two weeks was a big one: a light aircraft trip up to the Horizontal Falls.

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In terms of remote beauty I don’t think I’ve seen anything close to this. There is nothing for miles around except a thousand uninhabited islands scattered through a sparkling sea.

The Horizontal falls themselves are a natural phenomenon caused by 10m of tide trying to squeeze through a 15m gap in a mountain range. Pretty cool from the air:

Totally awesome when you blast through on a speedboat!

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The Horizontal falls are the main attraction, but I equally loved the boat trip in and around the remote and beautiful islands that lay everywhere.

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The Broome area has been magnificent to us and the region probably wins the prize for ‘most relaxed atmosphere’, but you could feel the heat of Summer on its way and it was time we went South.

80 mile beach (actually 130 miles or 208kms long) dominates the landscape as you head south. All across the interior we had been passing through massive cattle stations made up of seemingly arid land and had many questions as to how this part of the cattle industry worked. So we were very excited to discover that Anna Plains station welcomed a small number of guests onto their property. At just under 1m acres of land running 25,000 head of cattle they ship around 7,500 to market each year. We were there to watch a muster which involved a helicopter. Some calves get abandoned by their mothers, but luckily our kids were ready and willing to adopt.

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Each night we headed down to the beach to catch the sunset (again, #samesamebutdifferent) and light a fire as we waited for the stars to come out.

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We had watched the sun set over the water every night for two weeks and we were nowhere near being sick of it, but we did need to head inland again to catch the famous Karijini National Park.

First night back in the desert was one of my top free camps so far.

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Later that night, the stars came out.

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Karijini. People go to the Kimberly and talk about red dirt. This is next level. The story seems to go that there was a sea with lots of volcanoes spewing minerals into it which then deposited on layers on the sea floor. Fast forward a couple of billion years, allow for some uplift and a bit of erosion, and you get the spectacular array of gorges and waterfalls that make up Karijini National Park.

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And suddenly we’ve hit a major milestone: having been to Katherine Gorge, Edith Falls, all around Kakadu, through Litchfield, into bits of the Gibb, the Bungle Bungles and finally Karijini, we were done with the ‘arid landscape and epic gorges’ phase of the trip and looking forwards to being back into the surfing and coral, things which we hadn’t done since Cairns.

So we are pretty excited to be rolling into the World Herritage Ningaloo Reef region where we plan to spend a number of weeks rinsing the red dirt out of everything and getting some salt water behind our ears. See you amongst the coral!

#offthemooring