And so the cruise ends. What a fantastic 10 days on Silver Discoverer covering a total of 1528 nautical miles. Highly recommended.

We farewelled our new friends and our friendly crew. The other passengers were mainly Australian — all states except South Australia and quite a few from Melbourne. The crew represented 27 different countries, but were mostly from the Philippines and were truly wonderful. The ship is registered in the Bahamas but the officers are mostly Italian as is the Silversea company.

A chartered bus took us to Cable Beach Resort for a day by the pool, cocktails by the beach to watch the famed sunset across the ocean, and then a fabulous Japanese meal at the small resort restaurant Zensai. An aside here: Trip Advisor, never to be totally relied on, translates 前菜 as “small dainty things” — well, maybe at a stretch, but it more accurately translates as appetiser. And our five courses could almost be described as Japanese tapas.

Sensational! Not the cheapest meal we’ve had but one of the best and a must if you have paid out good dollars for the resort, what’s a few extra to savour these delights? It would be criminal not to book a table. Zensai is owned by a Tasmanian couple who relocated to Broome about seven years ago. The chef is Japanese. Only downside was Mr Grumpy the owner but fortunately we were served by his wife who is bubbly, enthusiastic and quite delightful.

Earlier, we were intrigued by this signpost. Closer here to Singapore than to Melbourne and surprisingly not that far from Tokyo.

Back to Melbourne tomorrow, May 6. And so ends the Kimberley blog.

Cheers!

The last full day of our amazing Kimberley cruise. We skipped an early morning (6 am departure!) zodiac trip to see more rock formations in favour of a sleep in before our exciting fast boat tour to experience the horizontal falls.

As the tour brochure says, this is one of the icons of the Kimberley coast. The falls are a pair of stunning breaks in the McLarty Range, about 300 metres apart. The sandstone, shale and dolomite range is 1.8 billion years old! The first of the gaps is about 25 metres wide and the second and more spectacular gap is just 12.5 metres.

With massive tidal differences of up to 10.8 metres, the horizontal falls — technically termed “pinch rapids” — are a natural phenomenon created as seawater builds up faster on one side of the gaps than the other, creating a waterfall up to 5 metres high on a king tide. With each change of tide, the direction of the fall reverses, creating vast tidal whirlpools on the outgoing side.

The ship sailed for Broome at lunch time and we had the most relaxing afternoon around the pool, cocktails while watching the sunset, and a great dinner with some of our new friends from the cruise.

It was also a chance to farewell our wonderful Expedition crew.

It keeps getting better! Today was definitely one to remember — a real OMG experience.

First though was the morning expedition to see examples of Wandjina rock art at Raft Point in Talbot Bay. This is quite different in style to the Gwion Gwion art we saw a couple of days ago and “conforms” more closely with photos we’d seen before of Indigenous painting.

It was quite a strenuous walk up a rocky path to reach the gallery but well worth the effort (and good exercise, too, after all the food we’ve been devouring). Pam decided to stay on the Silver Discoverer, which was a wise move.

Neil, a representative of the traditional owners, was on hand to welcome us to country and explain the meaning of the art (the origin of life). You can see from my pic above that some of the art has been retouched — this was done about 8 years ago — and while it may sound pity for this to happen, it is something that has been done every now and then over millennia.

Neil, second from right, explaining the art. Great bloke — avid Bombers supporter!

During lunch the ship relocated to where we were embarked in convoy on the six zodiacs for a trip to Montgomery Reef — the 8th natural wonder of the world, according to David Attenborough. Covering an area of 400 square kilometres and about 80 km long, the reef is subject to unusual tidal movements of up to 10 metres.

When the tide is out, vast lagoons, sandstone islets and a central mangrove island are revealed. The outward movement of the tide forms a torrent of water, creating a river cutting through the reef and hundreds of cascading waterfalls.

The lagoon in the middle of the reef can’t be seen from the river, which is where our zodiacs took us, but it is never completely emptied by the outgoing tide. Migratory birds have a feast as the receding water reveals a mass of small fish and little crabs. Turtles were everywhere but they just pop their heads above the water for a few seconds and are impossible to photograph. Black tipped reef sharks and dugongs live here too but we didn’t see them.

My photography can’t truly do justice to this natural phenomenon but take it from me, we were all just gobsmacked at this previously unknown world wonder. A real highlight of the 10 day cruise.