Back to the Magical Kimberley Coast

The next day of our journey along the Kimberley Coast we spent anchored near a beach. Most of the passengers had signed up for helicopter flights to the Mitchell Falls, some staying there and being collected later. As I could not do so, I stayed on board, and watched the busy traffic ferrying people onto the beach on the Zodiacs, so they could board the helicopters. Judging by the photographs I saw of the Mitchell Falls, this was a spectacular experience. 

Mind you, we were now several days from Darwin, in the middle of a very remote area of Australia. We had only seen a couple of yachts over that time. There was no service for our mobile phones. The ship did have satellite communication however, though no medical facilities. For this reason, when travelling in such areas it is very wise to take out travel insurance that covers you for a possible rescue from a remote area, which most likely would be by helicopter.  One of the pilots that day told some passengers that a couple of days beforehand, a woman from another travel group had a bad fall at Mitchell Falls, resulting in complex fractures. She was so badly injured that not only was she flown out from there, but also in the end she had to be flown in an intensive care air ambulance thousands of kilometres down to Melbourne for specialised treatment. That would be hugely expensive without travel insurance. With remote region insurance, it would have cost her nothing.

Anyhow, once everyone was back, a beach barbecue was set up on the same beach. We all enjoyed a great evening meal sitting on deckchairs on golden sands, and witnessing a stunningly beautiful sunset. And what was great was that unlike that park in Darwin and other areas, we were not bothered by any insects. Extraordinary!

The next day we travelled down another river and saw some rather lovely falls. There were signs everywhere around the pond at the bottom of the falls warning people about crocodiles. Apparently not long before that, a teenage girl had met an untimely death falling into the water whilst climbing around the falls with a couple of friends. I would add that it was the end of July in the Dry Season when we visited. The water would have been roaring down from the plateau above had this been the Wet Season. But at least there was a lot more water here than we saw in the waterfalls along the King George River. Some passengers made the most of the opportunity to go even closer to the falls by taking it in turns to climb from the Xplorer into the zodiacs, and zooming across to them. 

I think the photos below do not need captions. You can see our ship anchored offshore in the sunset photos. We were collected by the Explorer from the beach after sunset. The remaining photos show something of what we saw the next day.