Tuesday 20 August 2024 – Our final expedition, and also the longest – 2½ hours in a Zodiac.

It’s about 14km from the ship (X marks the spot) to the ultimate destination of the cruise – the King George Falls, which, in full spate, are reportedly magnificent. Dain had, though, set our expectations much lower. Since we’re well through the dry season, the water levels upriver of the falls were, unsurprisingly, low, so we weren’t going to see a massive cataract. Nonetheless, I wondered whether an aerial shot would be possible, even of a low flow, so I asked him whether it might be possible to whizz up the drone for a shot.  As soon as he heard the word “drone”, he simply said, “no”, and offered some kind of weaselly reason like migratory birds. I was expecting the answer no, so it wasn’t a surprise; and launching a drone from a Zodiac might have proved interesting anyway. But I’d have appreciated a more considered and les brusque response, frankly.

Anyhoo…

The ship ran a morning cruise for two groups and an afternoon one for the other two; and our group were last out, just after 2pm.  The first thing one has to do is to get from the ship to the mouth of the river, seen here between two sand spits, since we were just after low tide.

If you look carefully, you can just make out a Zodiac ahead of us as it enters the river proper.

When you enter the river, the scenery is pretty striking, with impressive cliffs on each side.

As ever, the dark patches are cyanobacteria. More on them later.

There’s a lot of geology going on, here.  For example, we passed a formation that showed we’d crossed a fault line, these arise where the Australian tectonic plate cracks under pressure from the neighbouring plates.

There were some amazing lumps of geology just lying around,

and one, nicknamed the “guillotine stone”, is very intriguing,

But it’s actually when you get up close that you get some even more fantastic sights. For example, our driver, Xander, spotted some very pale stone at the foot of a cliff

and took us over for a closer look

at what turns out to be very recently-exposed Wharton Sandstone. This – you remember, don’t you? I did tell you. Yes, I did – is the middle of the five layers of stone that make up the Kimberley, and is easily weathered; so what we were seeing had been uncovered by recent rock falls. These rock falls are catalysed by salt, which is present in the mists above the water; the salt water seeps into cracks in the rocks and evaporates forming salt crystals. The heat of the sun then causes the crystals to expand, putting pressure on the rock and over time this causes the rock to disintegrate. The honeycomb structures left by this salt weathering are called tafoni.

Further along the river we came across some much more weathered Wharton Sandstone, and the colours were extraordinary, as were the honeycomb patterns of the salt-provoked erosion.

Nature and coincidence between them also provided

a map of Africa! [ I don’t see Madagascar though – Ed ]

We did see some wildlife along the way.  There was an Osprey’s nest

though the bird on it is not an Osprey.  We’re pretty sure it’s a Peregrine Falcon.

There was a croc, a big bastard.

And there was a snake.

Xander (to whom congratulations are due for spotting the thing) swore it was some kind of Death Adder, one of the most venomous snakes in Australia (a high bar indeed). We’re not so sure.  Jane reckons it’s a Brown Tree Snake, which is not hugely venomous; our evidence is in the eyes, which show the “cat’s eye” vertical pupil. Apparently, the snake is also called a “cat snake” as a result.

There was a dolphin as well, and it apparently did some fairly serious cavorting, but not while I was watching, of course. A sea eagle flew across at one point as well, but I was busy trying to capture photos of something else. Ho, hum.

By this stage we were approaching our destination – the King George Falls. From a distance, it was a bit difficult to work out what was falls and what was just rock.

There are two falls, left and right, either side of the lumpy bit in the middle. We visited the right-hand one first.

The water flow was so reduced that it was more like condensation running down a wall than an actual flow of water.

but it did show up the rehydrated and therefore blue-green cyanobacteria at its base in very fine fashion.

Then we went to visit the other, left-hand fall.

The flow in this one was more generous – enough that, close up, one got wet from splattered water.

For the record, the falls can look magnificent when there’s enough water coming down the river, i.e. much earlier in the dry season than our visit – but of course then you can’t even get close.

Margie, the Cruise Director from APT, had laid on another surprise party for us at the Falls.

It was a nice thought, but actually dealing with glasses in a moving Zodiac whilst trying to take photos was a bit challenging. However, we manfully forced a glass of fizz down before heading back to the ship.

Although we had a full day left at sea before reaching Darwin, tonight featured a Gala Dinner, after the usual end-of-cruise ritual of introducing all of the crew to the passengers. There were in the order of 160 of us punters, and we were very well served by the 127 crew – hotel, catering, guiding, engineering and steering. Le Lapérouse is a comfortable ship, whose facilities are very well-organised and which has been extremely well run.  The social content surrounding the expeditions might not be to our taste, but it seemed to go down well with the other passengers, so APT have hit their niche pretty well with this cruise.

Overnight, we transit from Western Australia to the Northern Territory. This involves moving our clocks forward, as one would expect.  What I didn’t expect was that the time change was 1½ hours. We have a day at sea tomorrow, and should reach Darwin around 8pm, with the possibility that we could take a stroll round the town if we feel so inclined. Since we have a day or two there anyway, we may or may not take up on that. Come back soon to find out.