The holiday that was originally booked in early May 2019 finally happened in June 2023 more than four years later. We all know what happened in between. Anyway, it was a terrific holiday over 30 days with both a land and a sea component. The trip is described below. To skip everything except a few highlights, click here.
The first part of the trip was to fly from Melbourne to Broome via Perth, a trip which really brings home the size of Australia. Although hardly the most direct route, it took over eight hours.

We stayed in Broome for 4 nights and had a lovely time. The town is pleasant and the Cable Beach Club where we stayed is great except for being about an hour’s walk from town. It did however have terrific sunsets as you can see from the shots. The highlight was a trip to the Broome bird observatory which was well worth the early morning trip.

The Road Trip

Broome to Fitzroy Crossing

After our four nights in Broome we began our land trip around the Kimberley. The first leg was from Broome to Fitzroy Crossing via Derby. The whole day was spent on tarmac (ashphelt or bitumen for those of you who don’t know who invented it) which made it very easy compared with what was to come. The road was somewhat damaged after the extreme wet season which dumped enough water into the Fitzroy river to destroy the bridge.

Fitzroy Crossing to the Bungle Bungles

The trip to the Bungle Bungles began on the tarred great northern highway but finished with 65km of unsealed track that took an uncomfortable 2.5 hours to traverse and gave us our first taste of real Kimberley roads.

On the way we stopped off at Old Halls Creek which has a rich history and is famous for being the site of the first find, in 1895, of payable gold in Western Australia. Perhaps more importantly, it is the site of the amazing and deeply inspiring story that led to the foundation of the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS). There is a fitting memorial to poor Jimmy Darcy and the remarkable man who founded the RFDS, the Revd. John Flynn, see photo below.

The Bungle Bungles

The Bungle Bungles are geologically remarkable and are amazing to visit. We hiked into Cathedral gorge in the morning and then took a terrific helicopter flight in the afternoon. The photos really don’t do it justice.

Echidna Chasm to Kununurra

The next day we headed off in the bus to Echidna chasm in the north of the Bungle Bungles range and took a hike to the end of the chasm. We then made our way back to the great northern highway and headed up to Kununurra.

Kununurra

Kununurra is important for being the heart of the Ord river scheme. As a result of the scheme, there are now two large lakes, lake Kununurra and the very much larger lake Argyle which is amazingly, the largest reservoir in Australia and 18 times larger than Sydney harbour. We took a boat trip on lake Kununurra up to the lake Argyle dam and saw some lovely scenery and wildlife.

To Emma Gorge via Wyndham and Marlgu Billabong

Before leaving Kununurra, we visited the Hoochery distillery and were given a guided tour of the small operation. We then travelled via the splendid Marlgu billabong at Parry lagoons nature reserve and Wyndham to Emma Gorge Wilderness camp. At Wyndham, we ascended telegraph hill to view the port and surrounds. The last part of the trip to El Questro Emma gorge resort was our first taste of the iconic Gibb river road.

Emma Gorge

Hazel’s back was bad and so Rob hiked Emma gorge without her. An enjoyable but quite tricky walk over many broken rocks with spectacular scenery and a nice waterfall at the end.

Kalumburu Road

The next day, we headed further down the Gibb river road and then took a right up the Kalumburu road towards Mitchell Falls wilderness lodge. This was a test of endurance for all of us but particularly for our driver/guide Steve, who had to stay alert to negotiate numerous river crossings and an uncountable number of potholes on the 9 hour drive.

Mitchell Falls

We flew by helicopter to Mitchell falls with some spectacular views of the very impressive falls on the way in. We were very lucky because the extreme wet season meant that the falls were still flowing well when normally they would be much dryer than this. We then hiked back to the bus, a distance of about 5.5km. A much easier walk than the Echida chasm walk with some nice waterfalls and views on the way.

To Drysdale River Station

We headed back down the Kalumburu road towards Drysdale River Station, our accommodation for the night, which provides the only services on the entire 267 km road. The station covers 1 million acres and has a mere 6500 cattle. On the way, we visited two aboriginal rock art sites a Gwion-Bradshaw site and a Wandjina site and also had a picnic lunch at Murnuru, an impressive spot with a nice waterfall on the king Edward river. At night Rob took advantage of the dark sky to do a spot of astrophotography and was accosted by a preying mantis as he tried to edit the photos.

Drysdale to Bell Gorge

We headed from Drysdale river station down the Kalumburu road to the Gibb river road and turned west towards Bell gorge. We stopped for lunch at Barnett river gorge where Rob did a bit of rock scrambling to get a view of the surrounds and then we did a short hike down Galvan’s gorge to a waterfall.

Bell Gorge

At Bell gorge we made a short hike to see the gorge. Others went swimming, we enjoyed the scenery.

Back to Broome

We left Bell gorge and travelled back to Broome via Willare bridge roadhouse and that concluded the land part of our trip. We had a farewell dinner and said cheerio to our driver/guide Steve.

The beginning of the cruise from Broome

We spent another night at Cable Beach club in Broome and then transferred onto our ship, the Caledonian Sky, for our cruise up the Kimberley coast. We were welcomed aboard with much food, something that there was a lot of on the Caledonian Sky, and then had to do the mandatory safety drill. We then watched yet another spectacular Indian Ocean sunset.

Fraser Cay near Adele Island

Adele Island is advertised as the Galapagos of the Kimberley, a feeding and breeding ground for Humpback whales, thousands of seabirds and shorebirds, and a myriad of corals and other marine life. In order to protect the wildlife we were not allowed to land on the island but did head out to Fraser Cay, close to Adele island, on our first trip in a Zodiac.

Horizontal Falls

One of the real highlights of the trip was Horizontal Falls, an amazing phenomenon created by the interaction of the extremely high 10m tides here with the extraordinary geology leading to the sea rushing through two gaps, the seaward ‘wide gap’ being 20m wide and the landward ‘narrow gap’ being 10m wide.

An accident in 2022 meant that boats are no longer allowed through the narrow gap but we did shoot the wide gap on a fast boat which was quite exciting enough. We took two Zodiac cruises, the morning trip up to the falls during the flood tide and around Talbot bay and up Cyclone creek. In the afternoon we again took the Zodiacs up to the falls during ebb tide, which is quite different and even more spectacular. A reversible waterfall! After that we boarded the 1200hp fast boat to make our shoot up and through the falls.

Montgomery Reef

Montgomery reef is another of the wonders of the Kimberley coast. As the tide recedes, the reef appears to rise out of the sea with thousands of torrents of water pouring off the top.

Hunter River

We took a 3 hour Zodiac cruise up the Hunter River and explored the mangroves. The rock formations were amazing, and we saw a lot of wildlife including a couple of estuarine (saltwater) crocodiles.

Bigge Island

We visited a couple of sites on Bigge Island. In the morning we visited an aboriginal rock art site and after lunch we were treated to an APT (the tour company that we travelled with) ‘surprise’ which consisted of a visit to some impressive caves in which the ship’s resident musicians, Colin and Simone performed whilst we enjoyed a drink provided by the APT staff.

Vansittart Bay

Vansittart Bay is a small remote bay, synonymous with the Truscott air base that was operational during the Second World War. The bay features a lovely beach, saltpan and some interesting flora. The main reason for our visit was to see a world war two plane wreck..

King George River

We explored the King George river on a 3hr Zodiac cruise which culminated in seeing, and experiencing, the impressive King George falls. Our guide Steve, drove the Zodiac under one of the smaller streams falling down the rock face and we were all somewhat shocked by the force of the water. It is not an experience that I am keen to repeat.

To Darwin, Day at Sea

Our final day on the ship was a sea day as we travelled from King George river across the Joseph Bonaparte gulf to our final destination of Darwin.

This was the end of the cruise. The APT staff also took photos and have shared them here.

The Caledonian Sky

The ship on which we travelled was the Caledonian Sky, an extremely comfortable place with a delightful crew. Here are a few shots.

Darwin

Although the APT part of the holiday had finished, we still had 3 nights in Darwin which we thoroughly enjoyed. As we wandered past Government House, Hazel noticed a sign saying that it would be having and Open day that afternoon and so we attended.

We visited Darwin Botanical gardens and had a lovely time looking at the lovely tropical gardens and seeing all the birds.

Our last day consisted of a long walk all the way up bicentennial park where we saw masses of birds including two Tawny Frogmouths. After that we walked all the way down to the waterfront to visit the RFDS exhibition there. It seems that the RFDS bookended our wonderful trip.

Selected Highlights