Our first job this morning, was to book another two nights. We originally booked two nights, but the afternoon we arrived it was gusting fairly heavily and although our site is protected, we wondered if we would get in any kayaking. The wind has changed and its a gentle cool breeze for the last two days.
We regret that the people who were coming in after us have now been shifted to another site – Herbie is our hero…. actually we don’t regret it that they are not getting our site – first in….
Today, we decided to drive to Cape Leveque and One Arm Point (Bardi) at the tip of the Dampier Peninsula. It is bitumen road all the way, except for the 34 corrugated kms out of here. We left at 9am and returned at 1.30pm. In all 4 1/2 hrs to drive up and back and do a little sight seeing. We had considered doing this on the day we left, but we would have been very late back to the Broome Bird Observatory in deed.
It was about 125 kms up to the top of the peninsular. The top location was One Arm Point, it was very scenic with all of the islands close by. The tide was coming in and it was ripping past the point.
This is the top of King Sound and all of these islands are part of the Buccaneer Archipelago.
Derby is at the bottom of the sound and is about 125 kms south east as the crow flies.
Above shows the incoming tide rushing in. Scenic flights over the archipelago are popular, but also very expensive.
That’s as far as you can drive (on the dirt)
We had a cup of tea there and took some photos.
It was exceptionally scenic, a pretty nice piece of Australia.
We also visited Cape Leveque, but decided we were not going to pay for a permit to access a short walk of about 50 metres to the light house.
There is camping available at Cape Leveque and also Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm, but it is expensive. The resort at Cape Leveque offer a 2 man dome tent for $65 per night, or a room at $330 per night. We are very sweet at Nature’s Hideaway at $30 per night which is cheap for anything in the Kimberley, also we called into Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm and it was expensive as well. We will catch up these camp fees with free camps to compensate. Most Kimberley camp fees are $40 unpowered sites.
We returned back to camp at 1.30pm and usually by the end of busy day, I am not interested in cooking dinner, so we finally did the reverse thing of the main meal in the middle of the day. I cooked a pork stir fry with pickled ginger and chilli. The bargain strawberries at a dollar a punnet where crying out to be eaten, so we ate them with blueberry yoghurt.
I forgot to mention all the fun and games that happened in our beach shelter while we were away. We know who did it, the black cockatoo’s, they spent their time eating the purple berries from the tree providing shade. There were half eaten berries every where on the kitchen bench, on our chairs, all over the mesh floor. These berries stain like Indian ink. A clean up before we started lunch. I initially blamed the bower birds, but a visit on Saturday from about 12 or 15 red tailed black cockatoo’s to the same tree a little way from our camp confirmed the perpetrators.
very pleased with this photo, as the black cockatoo’s are very shy and take to flight if you try to approach them. even a show of the red tail and all of the birds separated. :)
The other camp resident is a goanna who climbs the tree every day, drops onto the shelter roof and spends the day resting in the shade and warmth under the canopy of the tree. You hear the claws scraping on the roof as it moves when the tin gets too hot. At the end of the day, it spends time soaking up the last rays on the trunk of the tree. What a life….
After lunch, we drove around to the creek for a spot of fishing, unfortunately we arrived a little too late, as the tide was nearly out. Tomorrow, we will be in camp all day, so can time the tides better. We want to kayak on the incoming full tide and try fishing again.
Saturday 13th September 2014 – fine sunny warm – Middle Lagoon
We woke up to the foggy morning, just like our first morning at Broome Bird Observatory. Absolutely every thing was wet and damp. It cleared around 9am. It was a rest day and mooch day. I made some griddle scones for a late morning tea/lunch. Around 1pm we took all the gear down to the beach and paddled around the lagoon and out past the front entrance and along the cliff face towards the beach at the ridge top camp area. It was full tide and enjoyed catching some of the full waves on the kayak. We managed to tangle our trolling lines and caught nothing. After beaching the kayak, we went for a swim and then brought everything back to camp. We had been storing the kayak down behind the dunes, so now we had to drag it up over the hill. It wasn’t too bad with both of us being draught horses. I spotted a couple of dogs on the beach and really wanted to harness them up and yell “mush, mush”.
I spotted all of the red tailed black cockatoo’s and took the photo, amended my previous accusation of the bower birds (sorry bower birds).
Great posts Chris - although Rick couldn't see it, I always have felt that the Indian Ocean is a different colour to the Pacific! So turquoise!
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