28/8/15 Horizontal Waterfall
I got picked up at 5:20am for a trip to the Horizontal Waterfalls in Talbot Bay. Sarah and Regine stayed at the caravan, mainly because the trip involved gravel road bus travel, small airplane travel and a boat ride. All things Regine isn’t keen on (and Sarah would have a hard time on a 10 h trip)
Our tour started with some 200km road travel to Cape Leveque– the first 92km of it on dirt roads. We stopped half way in Beagle Bay to see a little white church – the main feature is its pearl-shell altar.
After a cup of coffee we drove off to Cape Leveque. This is the most northern point on the cape where Broom sits on. It’s famous for its white colored sand and red rocks – creating a spectacular contrast with the crystal blue water. We had a good breakfast at the Koljaman resort whilst watching humpback whales jumping out of the water in the distance.
Cape Leveque - where red rock meets white sand and turquoise water
Next stop was on the other side of the cape at Bardi (One Arm Point) where we visited a fish hatchery. They have about 10 big round basins setup with different marine environments – and the guide was keenly showing us all the different fish, shells and corals living in it. I even got to hand feed a big barramundi.
Now the real trip started – as we moved from our 4WD tour bus into some seaplanes waiting for us. We were only 11 people in a 14 seater plane – so I got the whole back row for myself. A bit like traveling business class. The 30-minute flight took us across the ‘1000 islands’ to Talbot bay. We flew over what must be one of the most remote places on Earth. There are no roads for hundreds of kilometers and the area is made up of 800-1000 islands (depending on the tide height). Access is only possible by air or sea. The view over the deep blue water with contrasting green mangroves, yellow hills and red rock was absolutely stunning. I am so blessed to see such an amazing place.
We landed on the water –which wasn’t as scary as I imagined. It’s just a bit like a bumpy airstrip.
In the middle of Talbot Bay they setup an array of jetty’s, boats walkways and shark cages. Yes, next we put our bathers on, grabbed a snorkel and stepped into a metal cage in the water. On the other side of the cage we were greeted by about half a dozen 2-3m nurse sharks, which we could feed with some fish pieces.
Now it was our turn to get feed. Some grilled, freshly caught barramundi was on our menu.
Finally we got into a speedboat, just to get bored by a little tour around the different islands and waterways. It was great seeing, but the tour guide didn’t add much to my knowledge.
At last he turned the boat and we speeded towards the two horizontal waterfalls. This is a small gap in the rock/mountain ranges and behind there is a totally enclosed lake. This is then repeated again – creating two lakes with two narrow passages that link them to the sea. The next factor is the tide – its range is amongst the biggest in the world. Normal tides are easily 6m whilst king tides are 13.5m differences in water heights between low and high. Now when the tide is flowing in – this creates a little waterfall in this little gap as the water on the outside is rising faster than the inside can be filled. On the outgoing tide the water is trapped inside and can’t flow towards the sea as fast as the tide drops. This creates a waterfall in the opposite direction. We were able to drive with our boat up the first waterfall. The gap is about 25m wide and the difference in water height was only about 1m. The second gap is much narrower at about 7.5m. This was too dangerous to cross, as the inside was about 2m higher than our water level. At one point our guide stopped in the middle of the first waterfall – the boat had to do 12kn, (20kmh) just to hold position. It’s an amazing phenomena and very interesting to see. BTW the waterfalls can reach a height of 5m!
The water start in our plane (again business class for me) was again not as dramatic as imagined, and we got a good view from above on the two waterfalls.
Camels
While Martin enjoyed his time off family, Sarah and I had a 'women day', starting with breakfast plus a load of washing and than we went shopping. Not really that kind of shopping most women like to do, though. We wanted to get a travel guide for WA since we don’t really know much about the regions here. First the bookshop was still closed so instead we went into the Red Cross OP Shop and bought heaps of childrens books for Sarah (we managed to read 3 over coffee and smoothie in the ‘shady lane cafe’). The travel guides were sold out so we went to do the second part of our shopping trip: Woolies (groceries). That means trying to keep the things we need in the trolley, the things, that Sarah randomly grabs, out of the trolley, as well as the trolley out of everyones heels while Sarah is pushing it around… great fun! Well, apart from rice cracker and lettuce we got everything we needed.
The highlight of the day was a 30 min camel ride tour at Cable Beach at 3.30pm. It was the first time in ages that Sarah left the playground without debate and we went down to the beach to find ‘our’ camels, the red ones! The guides allocated camels to every person and Sarah and I got the second one in the Karawane of about 15 camels – the first one didn’t carry anyone. Sarah was a bit shy touching the camels but once we where sitting on it she was happy as. You sit quite high up and what looks like a gentle trot can give you a good shake in the back. Having Sarah in front of me on my seat didn’t make it more comfortable and I could feel my back fairly soon. Luckily we only booked the 30 minutes tour – the view was great and it’s a fun experience! Sarah loved it and didn’t want to leave at all so we had to wait until the next tour started and the camels trotted off. First thing at home Sarah had to tell Daddy about the great day she had :-)
