Horizontal falls both high and low tides

This trip has been a combination of Aboriginal paintings, wildlife on land, in the sea and in the sky as well as glorious scenery. Today it's Talbot Bay famous for the horizontal falls. This really describes a geological feature where water at high and low tide flows through a narrow passage between the cliffs creating a strong current. At low tide because there is so much water it rushes back through the narrow passage even more rapidly out to sea. The tide can be as high as 10 m which gives the impression of a waterfall when you look at it from either side. It was described by David Attenborough as "one of the greatest wonders of the natural world".

Timing is everything so the day is structured around us having both the best high tide and low tide views of this natural phenomena. We are fortunate and have an early morning longer zodiac ride first. We're fortunate because as the day warms up, it becomes hotter and more humid, in the zodiac however, we are quite comfortable. The first part of our zodiac ride takes us up Cyclone Creek a gentle ride to observe the geology of this place and some of the wildlife. We are very fortunate the guides are very good at spotting wildlife and we see short eared rock wallabies. They are quite small compared with wallabies we are used to seeing. From the zodiac they look to be about the size of a brush tail possum, in fact, they're a little bit larger than a quokka. They sit quite still in the shade making them very easy to photograph once you can actually locate them. Further down the creek we see a group of humpback dolphins. Dolphins like to play and there is a calf with the group and they are playing with a sea sponge, throwing the sponge in the air and catching it on their nose this is clearly visible because the sponge is orange. The back of the dolphins are a silvery pink color and we can see a tail that looks like at the tail of a small whale, perhaps this is where they got their name from. I don't even try to take a photo rather just sit in the zodiac and watch. In the Kimberly Rose was a Friar bird, a type of Honey eater because it was taking nectar from the flowers, flitting from flower to flower, making it very difficult to photograph. The Kimberly also has its own species of pigeon, a rock pigeon and there was a pair nesting high up on the rocks. We see Osprey circling overhead and other raptors.

It was hard to capture the power of the water going through the gap both at high and low tide. Our first view was the water flowing at high tide. To demonstrate the power of the current, our zodiac driver took the zodiac to the middle of the current and had the motor on full just to maintain our position. Earlier in the morning she demonstrated the very strong eddies by turning the motor off and just letting the zodiac be swirled around was really good. The was second excursion was later in the day to see the tide going out through the falls. We didn't spend as much time out there. It was just to look at the impact of the power of the water. We watched one zodiac driver hold her zodiac in the middle of the current which really demonstrated again how strong the force of the water through the gap is.

When we were in Broome some 10 years earlier, we took a flight from Broome in a seaplane which landed in Talbot Bay. At the time you could take a speed boat which would speed through the falls there and back which we did. However the view we had from the zodiacs both at high and low tide was a more interesting spectacle because it highlighted this phenomena far more clearly. The local tribe are calling a halt to the high powered craft and when current leases expire they will not be renewed. It is a far more pleasant experience in a zodiac which can continue.Baca selengkapnya