We woke to find ourselves in a lovely bay.

The rocks rising up enough to show out of the water have several lines on them.  The lowest is commonly covered by the tides, the next level is not covered by water often enough to have algae growing (I think)  is white from the salt (Sue’s theory) and the layer above that is a red colour from the natural rock.

In the morning we visited Edeline Island, where there were several rather sad graves, probably from unlucky pearl fishermen, and also some fantastic natural sculptures, formed by the wind and sand erosion I presume .

We then travelled on to Silica Beach, a beautiful bright pure-white sand beach, to go swimming.

After that, a longish journey on the boat to Myridi Bay, a sheltered spot to anchor, in amongst some very impressive rock formations.

Our first day of the boat trip.  To start with, though, we had a long drive from Broome to Derby.  Derby is a tiny town on the King Sound – a large bay up which we would travel later. 

There are many boab trees in and around Derby.

Properly called “Boabab” trees, they start off small, like this:

… but grow into this shape, with huge trunks but weirdly normal branches on top.

Anyway, there are lots of them in Derby.  Derby was probably a key port for the surrounding cattle stations to export their beef, and so has a very imprssive pier, now lying largely disused.  There was also a derelict railway station, which I will haver to find out more about once we have internet connection again.

The remainder of the day was spent on board “Discovery One”, our home for the next twelve days.  Travelling up King Sound to Cascade Bay, where we arrived after dark.  No pictures, therefore.

Today was a quiet day prior to starting our proper trip tomorrow: we start tomorrow with an early (8am) coach ride over to Derby.

We did some kayaking this afternoon though.

Very stable sea-going kayaks, basically a trip around Gantheaume Point, seeing some extraordinary rock formations.

We had seen these rocks on our first day from the land; seeing them from the sea was even more impressive.

The tour was promoted as a way of seeing sharks, rays and turtles, but this part was a little disappointing, although we did se  one turtle (to be accurate, though, we only saw its head as it popped up to breathe).  We did see an osprey seeding though, and were treated to a magnificent sunset.

Today started off with a visit to Broome Museum: an interesting collection showing amongst other things the appalling dangers faced by early divers, with the all-over diving suits with huge brass helmets.  Also the terrible history of the diving masters “black-birding” aboriginal divers – forcing them into slave labour diving for pearls, actually mostly for the pearl-shells, from which to make buttons, etc (Mother-of-pearl).

Then we set off on a boat tour to see the dinosaur footprints.  The trip started in an area with more fascinating rock formations.

And lovely coloured sand-cliffs.  There are also patches of mangrove trees.

Actually the dinosaur footprints were a little underwhelming, in my view.

Most of them appeared to me to be patches of discoid compressed rock (which is, of corse exactly what they are.

The mud was compressed by these huge creatures (the footprints come from a brontesaurus-type reptile, about 30m long and 12m high), and so resisted erosion enough eventually to be made into ovoid rock patches.

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This picture shows a footprint with much of the surrounding rock eroded away.

To me it was a tribute the the people who worked this all out.

We were shown other footprints which were less elephant-like, and more like the prints left by a huge bird.

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This is the print of large carnivorous dinosaur, apparently.

Actually the boat tour was really good, as we learned all about the Roebuck Bay ecosystem and much about the way that this important area has been changed into a marine reserve and National Park.  There are lots of wading birds, kites, ospreys, ducks, geese and others.

Today was another day in Broome.  We had an introductory tour, but the main impression from today was going for a camel ride at Cable Beach.  For some reason this pristine beach is a focus for 4WD “enthusiasts”, who drive in large numbers around some rock to then spend hours in deckchairs on the sand next to their vehicles. 

An otherwise lovely beach looks like this:

Despite that, the camel ride was excellent.

… and the sunset beautiful

At the end of a very long flight from Sydney we are in Broome (Q: what sort of country can have an INTERNAL flight which lasts over five hours?).

We have a few days here before our boat trip starts.

Today we just pottered around Broome.

This is an area called Gantheaume Point.  Just a short drive from Broome itself.  Fascinating rock formations, seen just at dusk.  Many people were setting up to watch the sunset over the water.

I (David) went into work last week (I think it was Thursday – 7th July) and told them that I had booked and paid the deposit on a cruise starting on 21st July ….

Then told them that this was for 2023 !

I’m quite excited about this.  We will go to the Kimberleys (NW Australia) and go on a 12-day cruise up the coast of northern West Australia.

Click to enlarge, as always.This is the approximate course of the cruise.  Our friends Marchelle and Mark went on this tour a couple of years ago, having researched which “cruise” was the best to go on.  So we have booked with the same company and boat (it’s called “Discovery One”).  A smallish craft – maximum 20 passengers, shallower draught than most boats, two smaller-still rubber “outboards”, emphasis on good food and flexible itinerary according to conditions.  What is seen depends on what conditions are like, and what the captain thinks is best.  However the rock formations, bays, beaches, birds, fish, crocodiles are all spectacular.

So, I’m excited at the prospect.