THE EXPEDITION AROUND THE KIMBERLEY
Off to explore the Northwest
corner of Australia “the Kimberley” on the Coral Discoverer. Via zodiac boats
and helicopter flights, our group will get up close and personal with this
beautiful part of earth.
Tiwi Islands
First expedition! Pippi
Longstocking and I board the Explorer, a skiff that is actually carried aboard
the Coral Discoverer, to land on one of the Tiwi Islands.
We stop at a workshop
(note the decorated ceiling) where aboriginal people with disabilities are
taught to use their traditional designs to create scarves, carvings (men’s work
only!) and carry bags. Scarves are created using batik as well as direct
painting processes.
The beautiful pukumani
burial poles are painted by aboriginal men on Bathurst Island (Tiwi is
comprised of two major islands). One man will work for 6-8 weeks on a pole, and
for this he earns not only wealth but also prestige. A pole features clan
designs and is placed on the gravesite at the time of the funeral ceremony
which is done a few months after death. The pole liberates the spirit of the
deceased. Tourists are not allowed to photograph the cemeteries, but the
Bathurst island museum features many poles to admire.
The
State of Kimberley
Today is May 20, 2018, in Australia and we have left the waters of
the Northern Territory and officially entered the state of Kimberley. It was a
long afternoon and night in heavy seas, but I entertained myself by going to
the bridge and talking to the navigator. Saturday’s sunset was spectacular. And
here is where we finally anchored Sunday midday : in the waters off Koolama
Bay.
Excursion this afternoon to the King George River and its spectacular
waterfalls!
King George River
Beautiful King George River
and its gorges! Incredible colors as various minerals leach through age-old
rock faces; “honeycomb” erosion at the base of many cliffs. BONUS vista: the
waterfalls at the end— and then our group got on zodiacs for ride through the
bottom of the waterfall. Chilly!
Vansittart Bay
Overnight the expedition
ship moved 92 Miles to anchor in Vansittart Bay. On nearby Jar Island today, we
walked to sites of 17,000 year old rock art, called Gwion Gwion by today’s
aborigibal owners/ protectors of these lands. Our anthropologist guide Shirley
Campbell lectured on the three styles at three different sites. The rock art is
not possible to date definitively; currently it’s dated by analyzing the grains
of sand in ancient wasps nests that affixed themselves to the paintings. Ochre
(crushed colored rock) was moistened and used to paint red, yellow, and white
but with the exception of red, most colors fade when subject to sun and rain.
Woku Woku Island
On Woku Woku Island, anthropologist Shirley Campbell pointed out hearths
hundreds of years old, remaining from the times that Maccassan traders sailed
on the wet season winds from Malay/Indonesia to fish for sea cucumbers
(trepang). Boiled and dried by the traders who came in huge fleets, the sea
cucumber products were sold into Asian markets where they are valued as a
delicacy and particularly China where they were thought to have aphrodisiac
effect. This trading activity, dating from the late 1500’s, included bringing
their own large pottery for cooking; shards have been found at the site.
Large
boab (aka baobab) trees near the old Maccassan settlement areas are probably
hundreds of years old too; two Osprey nests are in use in the boab now.
Montesquieu Islands
May 22, 2018. Today’s morning expedition launched early, as
is the case with anything related to birding. We moved this morning to the
Montesquieu Islands.
Using the ship’s tender “Xplorer”, we could get quite
close to the mating colonies on Sterna Island, where the cliffs are white due
to centuries of guana deposits (aka “bird shit”). Species seen today were
Roseate Tern, Crested Tern, Lesser Crested Tern, and the Bridled Tern. A great
momentary flight upwards was caused by the appearance of a White Bellied Sea
Eagle. (For more info on these birds, take a look at Cornell University’s
fabulous ornithology website, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/ or try https://www.arkive.org/ ) For the adventurous among us, we hopped onto
Zodiacs for an even closer look.
The wind picked up and the captain of the Coral Explorer radioed that the ship’s anchor was dragging a bit, so we had to shorten our birding expedition and head back to the ship. So it goes with expedition travel, where such unknowns pop up all the time!
Bigge Island
During our afternoon
expedition, at this burial site on Bigge Island, anthropologist Shirley
Campbell explained that the deceased’s body would be weighted down by stones;
later the relatives would return for the bones, which would be painted in
ceremonial colors. A bit further up on the rock escarpment, we looked down on a
ceremonial place, flat and encircled by rocks. Circumcision and other
ceremonies that introduce a boy into the responsibilities of manhood take place
here; no women allowed.
Caves on the beach provided a gallery space for rock art created by the wandjina, or spirits. A classic face looks at us clearly; these works have no mouth. Some believe that an open mouth would allow a flood to pour over the land; a different interpretation is that, with a mouth, the spirit gods could eat the people. (All speculation, as these drawings likely date 15,000 years). Then we see the outline of a ship... evidence of contact with the Maccassan trepangers. (Late 1500’s). And then, painted over older rock art, we see men with pipes and hats! Times have indeed changed for the aboriginal peoples, or as they are now called, “traditional owners”, of the Kimberley.
Prince Frederick Harbor
May 23, 2018: Today we
launched the zodiacs from the ship and landed on the beach at Naturalist
Island, part of Prince Frederick Harbor. We were met by helicopters of the
open-sided type (only four to a helicopter!) for a 20 minute thrilling ride
over country to a rocky landing site near Mitchell Falls. From there, it was a
bit of a scramble to a good lookout point.
The people of the Warnambal language
group (see their icon below) believe that the rainbow serpent created the river
which forms these waterfalls,and continues to live at the bottom of the lower
fall; the serpent sometimes manifests itself in the form of a rainbow!
Afternoon: a cruise on the
Hunter River in the Prince Frederick Harbor area, to look for wildlife in the
mangroves linking the river and in the waters. We saw many bird species, a
couple of saltwater crocodiles, and some dolphins. In the ship’s bridge, I took
a photo of the nautical map of the area... enlarge this photo to see the number
of “unsurveyed areas” hereabouts! Coral Discoverer navigators use notes from
past journeys (“mud” maps) to help them in these Kimberley waters.
Prince Regent Nature Reserve: Careening Bay
A great early morning
walk on the shore of Careening Bay in the Prince Regent Nature Reserve, one of
two UNESCO World Biosphere Reserves in Australia. A fascinating beach-combing
session with marine biologist Conrad Field, who explained the habitat and
differences between cockles, cowries, sea worms and corals (and many others)
Next stop was a visit
to the boab tree where explorer Charles Parker King’s crew memorialized their
third voyage on Her Majesty’s Cutter the Mermaid to explore Australia’s
coastline in 1820. The carving reads:
HMC
Mermaid
1820
Our naturalist Chris
Done fears that the split in the trunk will lead to each side falling down; he
is concerned that this boab will not live to see its 200th anniversary of the
carving.
See more about the this voyage in the photo below.
Langgi
May 24, 2018,
afternoon, we leave Careening Bay and visit a sacred Aboriginal site,
Langgi, known for its rocky pinnacles near the beach. Our anthropologist
Shirley Campbell, told this story from the traditional owners of this land, the
Wororra.
“Two
boys were left by themselves in the hunting area, and in his instructions he
cautioned them to be kind to owls as owls are sacred to the people. But they
got bored and climbed the tree where a little owl was sitting ; the boys took
all the feathers from the owl and replaced them with spiniflex needles. They
threw the owl into the air, taunting him and saying “if you are so beloved of
Wandjina, why don’t they help you fly?” On the third toss, the owl was gathered
into the clouds. He told the Wandjina what happened. The Wandjina found the
boys hiding in a boab tree, and sealed them in. The people saw the angry storm
clouds forming and they hid. The Wandjina asked the animals to help them find
the people, but they wouldn’t. The Wandjina then asked the lizard to help,
painting a white stripe down its tail and promising that if the lizard would
wave its striped tail during the coming flood, it would be spared. The Wandjina
also asked the brolga (a type of crane) to stomp on the ground to make it soft,
so when the people ran out from hiding, they got stuck. When the floods came,
all the people died except for one boy and one girl. They held onto the tail of
a Hill kangaroo, knowing that it would head for high ground. These become the
ancestors of all the Wororra. Namarali,
the Wandjina who protects the Wororra people, was unhappy with the other two
Wandjina of the region, saying “You only needed to kill the two bad boys, not
all the people!” So he left them, came down to earth, and married a woman —
who, unfortunately, was from a group he was forbidden to marry. The other two
Wandjina were furious that Namarali had done this wrong thing, and waged war on
Namarali and his warriors. The warriors were turned to stone.” The pinnacles you see here are the
warriors, and Namarali is the tallest
darkest pinnacle.
Raft Point
We continue our trip in the ship’s tender, the
Xplorer, so Pippi Longstocking can see Raft Point.
As we get closer, we see clouds of intense
smoke forming — and it seems that a bush fire has gotten out of hand. This is
the time of year that both government and Aboriginal owners of the land set
controlled burns of the bush underbrush while it is still a bit wet, hoping to
forestall the huge hot fires that can happen later in the dry season. Usually
these fires are set in a mosaic pattern, so that wildlife have a place of
refuge. It seems that this fire ranaway!
Montgomery Reef
May 25, 2018: Montgomery
Reef is a 154 Square mile reef system which, at low tide, is gradually exposed.
It is the largest reef system on the coast of West Australia. As the tides goes down, the cascades of water
running off the reef is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen! It looks
like land is rising from the ocean, almost like something you’d see in a
science fiction film. We got quite close to the action in the zodiacs. Lots of
turtles, sharks, crocodiles can be seen, and the fish that are stranded in the
pools as the tide goes down are prime targets for seabirds.
Then, a surprise ... drinks
on a sandbar that appeared just for a short while in the Buccaneer Archipelago.
This sandbar was a beachcombers paradise!
Talbot Bay
Overnight we moved to Talbot Bay and woke up surrounded by
breathtakingly beautiful cliffs.
A highlight of the morning
was a zodiac ride through the the swirling currents of the so-called
“horizontal waterfalls” created as tides rise and fall daily through the narrow
gaps in the cliffs. Today we’re are on a “neep tide” so the differential is
about 15 feet; a “spring tide” (which occurs when the moon is full) can mean a
24 foot differential.
Back on ship, a group of
nurse sharks decided to hang around the zodiac/Xplorer passenger loading
platforms. “Don’t worry,” we were told by our marine biologist Terry Done,
“their specialized teeth would only take the skin off your hands and feet...
that’s how they crunch up crustaceans in the water.” Everyone pulled their
hands away from the zodiac sides and no one took a foot bath in Talbot Sound
this morning!
Yampi Sound
A cruise of Yampi Sound took
us close to cliffs which epitomize a geological phenomena called “anti-clinical
folding”. This is the collision zone of the Kimberley block, aeons ago when it
nudged into the rest of Australia. Sundowners on a beach with a gorgeous
Kimberley sunset as a backdrop.
By the way… Quite a lot of
the exploration of the Kimberley in the mid 1800’s was done to try and verify
the existence of an inland sea in Australia. (This, of course, is reminiscent
of the US quest for the Northwest Passage. You’d think that commerce/greed would
have some boundaries...but, no.)
Lacedepe Islands
May 27, 2018, we left the Kimberley to move 110 Miles to
the Lacedepe Islands, which are officially in Western Australia — WILDLIFE DAY!
We get close to the island shores in the zodiacs. FEATURES: Largest colony of
breeding Brown Booby birds in the world (7000-8000 pairs) and second largest
colony of breeding Lesser Frigate birds in the world. Brown Booby chicks are
white and fluffy, fed by both mother and father, and must be ready for flight
in 3 weeks; at that time their coloration changes. Breeding takes place 4 times
a year. OTHERS SEEN: Noddy Terns cluster together. Red-billed Oyster Catchers.
Caspian Terns, with bright orange bills, launch attacks on Boobies that get too
close to their nesting sites. Crested Terns. In the water: green sea turtles,
shovel-nosed rays. What an incredible protected Nature Reserve!
This is our last excursion.
Tomorrow we dock at Broome and bid everyone farewell.
Kimberley....The expedition
to the Outback ends!
In 10 action-packed days, we’ve traveled by ship 1200
Miles from Darwin to Broome, and had the opportunity to go in the tender
Xplorer and the zodiacs up many bays, mangrove estuaries and small rivers to
see things that few people on earth will ever see... except, of course the Aboriginal
owners of the lands. My heartfelt thanks to them for sharing country with me.
Unforgettable and deeply moving experience. Pippi Longstocking thanks them too.
But of course, this
Australian Adventure does not end in Broome!
Next stop: Perth and Environs ~ Western Australia. Click here to see the next blogpost.
