Tag Archives: Scenery

Kimberley Day 5 – Hunter River & Porosus Creek

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Saturday 17 August 2024 – Steve here, just popping up to say a couple of things before handing the reins back over to Jane.

Firstly, though I guess this is a somewhat dubious distinction, I am a trendsetter. Yesterday, having noted my sore throat, I heard the ship-wide announcement at around 3pm inveighing anyone to see the doctor in the case of symptoms, and immediately hotfooted it down to the medical facility.

Which was shut.

I found Dain in the corridor and he gently pointed out the noticeboard outside the facility saying it re-opened at 5pm. So I made absolutely sure to get there 10 minutes early, wearing a mask. Much to my surprise, there was no queue, so I just walked in to explain my situation. I think the doc and his assistant were a little surprised at my presumption, but they sat me down and, using what I consider to be the old-fashioned, long-handled, nasal swab that seems actually to touch your brain tissue, tested me. Twice; once for Covid and the other for influenza (I didn’t know there was such a test, actually). Negative for Covid, positive for Influenza A, so I was immediately dispatched to isolate myself in my cabin.  As I left, the medical facility’s waiting area was now crowded with people there, presumably, for the same reason as me. But I got there first. Hah! Li’l old trendsetter, me.

Unsurprisingly, the situation escalated, and the captain had to make a general announcement that, since the number of cases had passed the 4% mark, mask wearing anywhere inside on the ship was mandatory, and highly recommended outside and on the Zodiacs. Later still, he joined the evening briefing to tell us that there were, so far, 10 confirmed cases, six of Covid and four of Influenza.

So Le Lapérouse was now officially a Plague Ship.

It’s all under control, or so they say. Our cabin now has a notional quarantine flag against it, so our cabin girl, Verona, doesn’t come to tidy up after us, which seems sensible. We also get lunch and dinner menus delivered so that I can order a meal to be brought to the cabin. Thus far, though, because my appetite has not been immense, Jane has simply brought the occasional mignardise for me, which has been sufficient.  To their credit, the ship’s reception has followed up the menu delivery just to see if I wanted to order anything; the organisation has responded well.

And now, back to Jane…..

Today’s excursions were two zodiac cruises along the Hunter River and its tributary, Porosus Creek.

The morning cruise was at high tide. We passed a dramatic pair of rock formations as we entered the mouth of the main Hunter river

and passed under towering cliffs of the now familiar blazing orange and black sandstone.

The river is fringed with several species of mangrove

 

but behind the fringe of mangroves, naturally fragmented into specific ecosystems by the rock formations, are monsoon vine thickets: a short-statured form of closed-canopy rainforest, containing many food and medicinal plant species of cultural importance as well as supporting a wide variety of endemic flora and fauna.

The setting was extremely beautiful; the reflections in the water reminded me of Rorschach ink blots!

and the colours of the rocks together with the turquoise water were wonderful.

We were hoping for wildlife but to be honest there wasn’t much, and what there was was only glimpsed briefly: a snub nosed dolphin, diamond backed mullet, some substantial jellyfish, a night heron, a couple of kingfishers; we did see one of the salt water crocodiles (“salties”) that live here but it was displaying precisely why the salties are such dangerous predators by being virtually invisible.

So we returned to the ship for lunch, then ventured out again, as the tide was falling, along Porosus Creek.

Low tide = mud…

and mud = mud skippers! We had seen – at a distance – some tiny ones (a couple of inches long) in Talbot Bay; these, however, were giant mud skippers, up to around a foot long, and the males were showing off and leaping about to impress the females:

Sorry it’s such a hopeless bit of video – I was trying to hold my phone steady on a rocking zodiac while avoiding getting bits of other punters in the picture, and this was the only reasonably steady fragment!! Hopefully you will get the pro videographer back soon…

Anyhoo, mud also = crocodile tracks

And everyone knows that crocodile tracks = crocodiles!

There was an interesting stand-off between these two at the entrance to a small side creek – but they obviously reckoned that discretion was the better part of valour and sidled past each other…

 

So all in all a delightfully riparian day! The morrow has more rock art in prospect. Since I am requested not to share pictures of the art on social media I’m not sure how this is going to play out; come back tomorrow to find out!

Kimberley Day 2 – Montgomery Reef and Freshwater Cove

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Wednesday 14 August 2024 – Today saw a morning Zodiac cruise and an afternoon landing. The cruise was to see one of the many extraordinary phenomena that result from the geology of the Kimberley – tidal water movement at Montgomery Reef. The afternoon was spent walking at Freshwater Cove.

So, Montgomery Reef, then.

If you look at the track of our Zodiac cruise on Google Maps, it looks very dull indeed.

However, add the Satellite layer, and you begin to see what we were cruising through.

In detail,

you can see we were cruising up a creek. Because we were there as the tide was falling, it presented an amazing sight.

The range of tidal movement around Montgomery Reef is very high.  At Spring Tides, it can be a 12m (40ft) difference between sea levels at high and low tides.  We were there at Neap Tide, so the movement is much less – about 5.5m (17ft).  As the tide rises, the water rises above the reef; when it falls, the water has to go somewhere, and the shape of the reef means that it spills over in multiple channels. I stole an aerial photo which gives a clearer idea of what’s going on here.

It’s not just pouring out in the channels; it’s running over the surface of the reef everywhere.

Montgomery Reef is somewhat different to a regular coral reef. Whilst coral reefs are usually composed of limestone from coral skeletons, shell fragments and the remains of calcareous algae, Montgomery Reef is an ancient terrestrial tableland created from the same rocks as the surrounding Kimberley Basin. Covering the existing features of the rock is a more recent layer of marine sediment, including calcareous coral, shell and algae. Calcareous algae in the form of rhodoliths (the yellowish chunk in the picture)

are the predominant reef building organisms on Montgomery Reef. Rhodoliths are unattached, photosynthetic organisms made of coralline algae, which aggregate to form complex communities and in the case of Montgomery Reef, act as a long barrier across the reef. (Tom, our guide for the cruise, explained some of this detail, and I got the rest from this fact sheet).

The water in the channel appears to have a problem that would be labelled “pollution” were it seen in the UK – scummy froth on the surface.

However, it is entirely natural. Because the reef spends so much (i.e. half) of its time exposed to harsh sunlight, the corals that have colonised the reef have developed a natural protective substance which acts as a sunscreen, and this finds its way into the water with the fall of the tides.

The creek we cruised along is the feeding ground for green sea turtles, and we saw several heads pop up as we went along, as well as some swimming beside the Zodiac.  Annoyingly, they were always on the shallow side so we (seated as we were on the other side of the craft) rarely got to see anything.  Our optimism that we would surely see some turtle action on the way back was dashed as we returned up the other side, so we never got our turn at looking for turtles nearby. The best I got was this bit of video, which shows a turtle basking in the shallows.  Yes it does.

The afternoon saw our first landing, which was at Freshwater Cove.

An indigenous family lives there, and every group was welcomed with a speech from the niece of the family and her sister, who narrated a story from the Dreamtime and anointed everyone with a dab of ochre on their cheeks – the dark colour of the ochre was explained by the story we heard. The building top left in the photo is an artist’s hut, where punters can relax and (preferably) buy souvenirs, such as the hand-painted T-shirts, decorated in traditional style by family members.

It was a wet landing, and the nice folk at APT had ensured that there would be towels for people to dry their feet in order to change into shoes suitable for the rest of the afternoon.  A couple of walks were on offer: a short one along the beach; and a longer one (2km out and back, up a hill) to see some aboriginal rock art.  We had opted for the latter. Dain, the expedition leader had stressed in yesterday’s briefing that some of the going was over rocks and boulders, and that there would be reasonably large rocks to clamber up and down. (He had laid a test, which was that people had to be able to step up on to the stage in the Laperouse Theatre without any assistance as a prerequisite for anyone wanting to do the longer walk.)

There was a reasonably well-defined track for most of the walk

and people obediently trudged along it.

Inevitably, for a group like this, progress was at a gentle pace, but it gave us a chance to appreciate the remarkable rock formations we passed.

We had to squeeze through a narrow gap between two substantial boulders.

This is known as the “dessert gap”, as it’s a test as to whether someone has gone heavy on the puddings during the cruise. (Spoiler alert – there is a way round for the portly!)

At the top, our group rested for a few minutes

because another group was below us looking at the rock art.  When they surfaced, we clambered down past a scene that looked like something out of Picnic at Hanging Rock,

but which was actually the roof of a wide-mouthed cave, on which one could see the rock art.

“Where is it, then?”, you might well ask on seeing that photo. “Digitally removed”, is the answer; we had been briefed that respect for the native traditions dictated that while it was OK to take photos for our own records, these were not to be shared or published on social media: it is not for us to tell their stories. That’s why you can’t see any of the paintings in the photo above. Something you can see, however, is the colonies of native bees nesting in the blackened holes along the top of the back “wall” of the overhang, whose honey is harvested by the local people.

The father of the family, a chap called Neil, described the history behind the cave, which was known as the “cyclone cave” for the protection it afforded when the weather got uppity. When asked how old the paintings were, Neil said they go back 65,000 years.  I did some intensive research asked ChatGPT about this and discovered that, generally speaking, Kimberley rock art could stretch back as much as 17,000 years;  so the figure that Neil used could well be the folk memory which inspired some of the paintings, as there is broad understanding that Aboriginal peoples have been in Australia that long. Whatever, the paintings have great historic and cultural import for the indigenous people. They depicted various aspects of life – stingrays, turtles, fish, cyclones and even the cautionary tale of a little boy, who had disobeyed his mother’s instructions and gone out on a fishing expedition, only to be sadly killed in an accident. So the pictures give lessons as well as tell stories. The art is touched up by the family every so often to keep it fresh but new paintings are not added

Jane and I didn’t find the walk at all arduous; I should jolly well hope not – the temperature was “only” in the upper twenties – we’ve walked much further in far hotter conditions – and the going was by and large not at all challenging bar the final scramble. However, a couple of members of our group were unfortunately not up to completing the walk back to the shore without issue. To be frank, I’m not surprised; some of the people on this cruise are quite crocked in various ways – aged, frail or otherwise not in good shape. APT had, though, prepared for this eventuality, and a medical team was despatched from the beach – at a run, complete with stretcher – to support the two who were having problems, and they both eventually made it back to the boat OK.

After we returned to the ship, we didn’t have long to wait for the evening briefing; just long enough to pick up a drink at the bar, actually.  Dain explained what we would be seeing tomorrow, a combination of interesting geology and further unusual tidal action, this time in Talbot Bay.  APT had organised a casino evening in the lounge, which we really weren’t all that interested in, so after a bite of dinner al fresco we repaired to our cabin and tried (with not a great deal of success, it has to be said) to get an early night, as we had to be up betimes-ish for the Talbot Bay activity. Which will be revealed, of course, in the next thrilling installment, which I hope you would like to read in the fullness of time.

Our last day in Perth

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Tuesday 6 August 2024 – The day started with us missing out on things.  We had no formal items on the schedule, so had a bit of a lie-in, to such an extent that when we went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast, they’d stopped serving.  “Ah, well” we thought, “at least there’s the lobby café.”  We went back to the room, and I got distracted by writing this ‘ere blog, to such an extent that when we went down to get a coffee and pastry, it had closed for the day. “Ah, well” we thought, “we’re bound to be able to find coffee and pastry out somewhere.”  So we went for a walk. Obviously.

Our first stop was the Bell Tower, which is so named because it has bells in it.

One could be forgiven for wondering what the hell could be interesting about bells, but it was an interesting diversion, covering the making of bells, the ringing of bells and the displaying of bells.  Having paid the entrance fee, one is faced with six flights of stairs or a lift, so we opted for the latter for the way up and the former for the way down.

As one exits the lift, there is a carillon. If you put a coin in, you can get it to play a tune, selected from a bewildering variety of possibilities; or, for those interested in the deep mathematics and patterns of bell ringing, you could get it to “ring the changes”.  Here is a video of a set of changes happening, which is very, very dull, unless you’re heavily into campanology.

Inside the building at the top is the Anzac Bell, the largest swinging bell in Australia, cast from copper, tin and gold, and weighing in at 6½ tons.

Ceremonially rung daily at midday, it is a lasting memorial to Australian and New Zealand servicemen and women involved in wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations around the world.

One level down, and just visible in the photo above, is a set of 18 bells, a dozen of which are the historically significant bells (made in 1725) from the Saint Martin in the Fields Church in London, which had to be removed from that church because their shaking was destroying the church tower.

To this day, these bells are actually rung regularly by a team of bell ringers, who ring the changes twice a week; one can book a ticket to watch them, and also book a “Bell Ringing Experience” which gives a chance for punters to have a go on the ropes. This makes the Bell Tower, custom built to house these bells, one of the largest musical instruments in the world.

Forgive the reflections, by the way; the bells are behind two layers of glass, presumably so that punters who are watching don’t get deafened.

Outside the Bell Tower is something that demonstrates one aspect of modern life in which Perth lags the zeitgeist.

Love padlocks. In France and Italy they are a curse, destroying bridges with their weight and being a general menace. In the Bell Tower, they’ll sell you a heart-shaped padlock for AUs$5.

Going to the Bell Tower put us near Elizabeth Quay, and so we went there in search of that coffee and pastry that we’d missed out on earlier.  We found the coffee at The Island Brewhouse, but they only did proper meals, and not pastry.  We weren’t yet ready for proper food, so satisfied ourselves with just the coffee before continuing our peregrination.

This led us across the very ritzy Elizabeth Quay Bridge

and past a bizarre statue.

It’s called “First Contact” and is a representation, created by indigenous artist Laurel Nannup, of what the original Noongar people must have thought on seeing the sails of an arriving European ship, looking like a big white bird, and crewed by white people whom they thought were the souls of their ancestors returning from the sea.

Our eventual destination was Kings Park, a cultural heritage site and home to the Western Australia Botanic Garden. We allowed Google Maps to tell us the best way to walk there and followed its directions. These led us along beside the river, where we saw an Australasian Darter.

We also saw, high on a hilltop, an obelisk, which seemed to be in the general direction we were headed. At one point, we had to scamper across a four-lane highway, with traffic lights only controlling two of them, but we made it OK. Then we had to scramble up a bank to a path which led us along and back down to the main road we’d just crossed, at the foot of the Kokoda Track; this would lead us up into the Park. The space at the bottom of the Track looked a bit unkempt and scruffy, and furthermore didn’t seem to have a formal way of access from the major highway running past this start point; but, hey, what the hell, we thought, and started up it.

Up was the operative word, here.

The track passed several plaques, such as these.

I wasn’t quite sure of the significance of these, because I hadn’t yet found out what the Kokoda Track was about.  It carried on up and up

for some 161 steps. Only at the top did a couple of things become apparent. The first was an information board explaining that the Kokoda Track Memorial Walk is a tribute to the bravery of Australian troops who fought in Papua New Guinea in WWII. The fighting on The Kokoda Track was one of the vital elements of the Australian efforts in World War II. The Papua New Guinea campaign, including The Kokoda Track, Milne Bay, Buna, Gona and Sanananda resulted in a total of 8,546 Australian and United States casualties. Australian soldiers fought through atrocious conditions and against vastly superior numbers in this campaign between July 1942 and January 1943.

This was the second.

We had walked up this closed path; this went some way towards explaining its unkempt state! Anyway, having ascended some 70 metres vertical, the view was pretty good.

There were various paths available, and we pottered on in search of our first main objective within the park,

the Giant Baobab (or Boab as they call it here), Gija Jumulu. Estimated at 750 years old, the tree is a special gift to all Western Australians from the northern Indigenous people, the Gija, who are the traditional land owners. They performed a farewell ceremony to the tree on Monday, 14 July 2008 and it then travelled over 3200 km by long haul truck from Warmun down to Perth.  It’s the longest known land journey of a living tree this size: 37 tonnes and 18 metres tall.

But “giant”? Hah! We saw baobabs far larger (and older) than this one when we were in Madagascar.

Jane had visited the Botanic Garden when she was last in Perth, longer ago than it would be delicate to expound, and was interested to see the wild flowers; there was a wild flower pavilion signposted and so we hied ourselves thither. To be honest, it was a bit of a let down,

so we pottered on along various paths taking in the general ambience, which was delightful.

We left the garden by its very stylish main entrance

past the War memorial, which was the obelisk we’d seen earlier,

and headed back towards the city, past sights both large

and small.

Australian Magpie (not related to the UK version, and not, surprisingly, a corvid)

A Magpie-Lark

We had the option of going down the Jacob’s Ladder stairs

but decided against that and walked down a more gentle gradient to St. Georges Terrace in the city, where there was a further selection of fine colonial-style buildings crouched between huge modern steel-and-glass carbuncles.

We ended up back at the Island Brewhouse, since we were by now ready for a proper meal. We sat outside to eat our meal, because it was still reasonably warm, and it actually came on to rain, which surprised us somewhat. Having eaten, we waited for a gap between showers and hastily made our way back to the hotel (via restocking the Twinings at Woollies) to prepare for the next segment of this trip.

We’ve had a lovely time in Perth and its environs, but tomorrow, Qantas being willing, we must leave. We fly North! to Alas… Learmonth and travel thence to Exmouth; for what purpose, you’ll have to keep an eye on these pages to discover.