Horizontal Waterfalls

Dawn at Cape Leveque was almost as impressive as the sunset with the sun reflecting off the red rocks on the east beach. After an early breakfast we backtracked from Cape Leveque to the main highway again and headed towards Derby.

Derby is a town of about 3000 people and was the site of a large live cattle export operation until about the 1970s when it shifted to Fremantle. It is one of the big cities of the Kimberley as there are only 3 towns with a population over 2000 - Derby, Broome, and Kununurra.

We stopped at the port for lunch and then headed to Derby Airport for our flight to Talbot Bay and the Horizontal Falls in an amphibious Cessna Caravan.

There are actually 2 sets of Horizontal Falls in Talbot Bay, the outer falls which are about 12m across and the inner ones which are about 7m across, both are about 40m deep. They are caused by a small gap in the rocks that restricts the tidal flows in and out of the inner and middle bays. The inner falls are the smallest and so the most dangerous with a difference in water height of up to 3 metres, the outer ones are wider and so only get to about 1 metre or so difference. The water past both falls was very rough with lots of whirlpools and waves. In the photos below the dark stain on the rocks shows how high the tide can get, about 11m.

We landed on the bay and took a fast boat ride through the falls which was loads of fun. They then took the boat on a tour of some of the nearby bays, the rocks in this area are amazing and clearly very old. It is mostly sandstone but there are some areas of limestone as well.

Our accommodation was on a house boat that was part of a system of pontoons, jetties, helipads, and swimming cages. It was a really well set up. During the wet season they move all the components up into one of the nearby creeks where it is well protected from cyclones.

There is a large population of Tawny Nurse Sharks in Talbot Bay. These are bottom feeding sharks that don’t mind a free hand out! They do have a lot of small teeth but don’t usually attack humans, provided humans don’t do silly things.

The photos below are a few of the 300+ I ended up taking during our stay.Read more