The next part of our 6 month adventure was a one day/night tour to the Horizontal Waterfalls. The tour involved a seaplane flight over the Bucaneer Archipeligo departing from Derby, landing beside a luxury houseboat where we would spend the night, and then a second scenic flight back to Derby over a more western part of the Archipeligo. Whist on board we would do three boat rides through the incredible Horizontal Waterfalls and surrounds.
Boarding our flight in Derby.
Amazing tidal mud flats around Derby.
The terrain begins to get hilly as we get closer to the falls.
And we start to see water.
As the pilot swerves through a narrow gap in the mountains, we land amongst the ranges in a secluded bay.
What a setup! 2 luxury houseboats, seaplanes, helicopters, several high speed boats (similar to jet boats but with outboards), and a shark cage. This was going to be fun!
After showing us to our rooms, we jumped straight onto one of the boats for a ride through the first and second falls followed by a second ride through the first fall about an hour later. It was pretty hard to get good photos of the falls due to having to hold on with two hands.
The rush of water is caused by a tidal pinch where the water within the two bays can not run in or out quick enough to keep up with the incoming or outgoing tides. If this was a river it wouldn't be as impressive but the fact it is caused by tides alone makes it pretty amazing.
The boat was surrounded by huge Lemon Sharks and a giant QLD Groper. Just before our second boat ride we had a swim in the shark cage while the crew fed them. Pretty cool although Lemon Sharks are pretty much giant catfish. Lol
As the captain manoeuvred the boat rough the narrow gaps in the rocks, you can see and feel the power of the water pushing though.
This is a natural spectacle that everyone should experience if they get the chance! Simply incredible!
Then it was back to the floating city for fresh Barrimundi on the BBQ and quite a few drinks.
We had a great night with a few beers and a bottle of Bundy, reminiscing about the past few weeks.
Sunset over the bay!
The next morning we were up early for our third boat tour through the falls.
After the boat the ride it was time to board out flight back to Derby. This time the flight path was much further to the west towards the outer part of the Achipeligo after first flying over the Horizontal Falls.
This part of the world is Mind blowing. Huge mountain ranges with prestige islands and untouched waterways scattered with coral reef. It's similar to the Whitsundays but completely unique in its own ways. For anyone interested in the natural world move this one to the top of the list!
Barrimundi farm below.
And finally back to Derby.
The image below shows the exact path we took to the falls and back. Since my camera has a GPS each photo I took shows up on the iPad "places" screen. Derby is at the bottom of the image and the falls are at the top right. The map of Australia is starting to look like a pin cushion. Lol
This tour was the final leg of the trip for Mum and Dad would started heading home from Derby. It was an amazing finale to their trip and one of the major highlights of our trip so far.
Not far from Derby they headed East for Fitzroy Crossing and continued West towards Broome with our next destination being the Dampier peninsula including Cape Leveque.
Thanks for sharing part of our trip with us. We had an amazing and memorable time in the Kimberleys and well done on roughing it in the bush for a month!
