It was our last day in the Kimberley. We headed back up to the hidden waterfall and had another swim. I got the drone out too.You can see how easily the entrance could be missed. Once in, its a simple climb up from the dinghy to the plateau with a small pool by the waterfall, and a bigger pool beyond. We’ve swum in both. Spring fed, lovely fresh water.We had lunch back on the boat, in time to see one of the smaller cruise ships arrive at the Amphitheatre, along with the boat from the Berkeley

Another beautiful place! Arrow, Duplicat and Neringa anchored in the river

The trip up to the top of the Berkeley River is quite spectacular and not to be missed! We picked up the anchor pretty early (as soon as the tide went slack ahead of the flood) and set off up the gorge which got quite narrow.The trip didn’t take too long but was very enjoyable. We got some nice time lapse footage of the route as we went, plus some good drone pics.We dropped the anchor right by the Amphitheatre falls (only a trickle coming down), which is… well.. I’m running out of superlat

This morning we took to the dinghy and back into Casuarina Creek to go and see some rock art and have a swim. The Berkeley River resort boat beat us ashore, but we managed to stay out of each other’s way.The first bit of art is reported to be a thylacine, but it could be two with one superimposed on the other. Unclear. What do you think?Then we went to look at the Rainbow serpent as well as some kangaroo prints below (look like hands for the fore paws with the long hind leg print below).There

Nice as it was in Casuarina Creek, I decided it was a bit too hard to stay overnight. Duplicat is a bit big for the area you can anchor in - not enough room to swing when the wind reverses. We’d put a stern anchor out - several times in fact, because the bottom near the island is rocky and the holding isn’t great. We’d had a settled afternoon, but I’d have a very disturbed night anchored there as I’d be checking all the time.However, the creek nearly dries at low tide, so we needed som

We pulled the anchor at 8pm and motored out of the anchorage outside the King George River. We’d heard from another boat that there was a lot of swell, but the wind had calmed down a lot, so I figured it wouldn’t be bad.We punched a bit of current for the first couple of hours, then it eased. The swell wasn’t bad and almost non-existent after the headlands. We motorsailed for a while, then the wind built a bit more and we were on time, so we could sail with a making current for a good few

Our first night passage in a long time - since we sailed up to Cape Leveque in fact. Its just one night, and straight down the coast. We don’t have to go very fast, but given the wind dies at night, not sure there’s much sailing to be done. We want to hit the high tide at the Berkeley River tomorrow morning, so we can go straight in.Just having dinner, then we’ll be off around 8pm local time. We’ve been rewarded with a stunning sunset….

Having moved down to be closer to the east arm yesterday, this morning we headed off early to see if we could climb back to the swimming pool above the East Arm falls.It was a bit easier than last time - probably just because we knew what to expect. We found a slightly different route at the top which meant we didn’t have to lean on the dodgier rope. All good, and this time we were ready for a swim!The wind was calmer, so we also managed to get some drone footage.Alas, we were so early we didn

I seem to have organised a little fleet to go ashore and do the East Arm hike. We ended up with 4 dinghies at the alternative route - a small gully just west of the falls. It took a bit to marshall the dinghies so they weren’t bumping into rocks, as we knew we’d be a while. Once we were all happy, it was up the gully. Its a bit of a scramble and you use a rope in one place but its not as tough as the Glycosmis climb - our benchmark!The plateau on the top is a lot less smooth than Glycosmis.

East Arm falls on the King George River is famous for its lovely swimming pool at the top. However, its also famous for its rather tough climb up to said pool.Without the ropes, it would be a very hard climb indeed. With them its still pretty sketchy - for me at least. Its absolutely at the limit for what I’m prepared to do - climbing up a 25m climb with overhangs, over a croc (and jellyfish) infested pool. What could possibly go wrong?We know a few cruisers that have not managed it this seaso

Last night we had one of the most surreal experiences I’ve had on the boat. I had a cooling shower just before bed, but on looking out of the cabin window, I could see dots of light moving. Not reflections of stars, and not phosphorescence in the water. Out on deck, having given Nina a call, we could see little fish in the water and they appeared to be glowing - with a whole school of them swimming up the river past us. Quite unreal to watch but impossible to capture on camera.This morning we

We have finally made it to the twin falls - dry at this late stage in the dry season but still a spectacular sight!8am and its already baking hot. Think we’ll save the climb to the top until early tomorrow… Satellite is going to have some fun in this deep gorge, so only brief blog updates for now…

After a beautifully calm night (which unfortunately brought the insects out and left the boat covered in them this morning), we picked up the anchor and headed out of the inner bay at dawn.We re-anchored off the outer beach that leads up to the Lost City - an area of rock formations that were used for habitation. The main draw is the rock art, of which there is quite a bit (though it takes some finding) and its pretty good!The going isn’t too hard - its spinfex and boulder territory. There are

Finding the start of the climb was a little tricky, but we did eventually find a small arrow inscribed onto a rock, a little further down the bay than the guide suggests. It was clearly the right place as once we found that, we started seeing cairns. It has to be said, the cairns marking the route are plentiful and leave little doubt as to where the suggested route goes.That said, the climb is one of the harder ones I’ve done - and I’ll admit - a little scary in places! The route starts off

Well after yesterdays long day, rounding the most northern point of WA, we were looking forward to some rocky cliffs and water falls (though we knew they’d probably be dry by this time in the season.The outer anchorage at Glycosmis was a little bouncy in the afternoon swell, but calmed down pretty quickly. Never uncomfortable but its been a long time since the boat was moving at anchor! We did try to get into the inner bay, but without a survey and on a falling tide, we ran out of water so cho

Up before dawn, we could see the anchor light of another boat in Anjo bay. We didn’t see it come out though, so not sure who it was. We made reasonable progress towards Talbot bay, but given the calm conditions and weak current against us, we decided to press on and see what Cape Londonderry was like.For us, it was flat calm. No big convergence of tides, no rough water, not much of anything. Lucky us! Once around the corner, we had some wind at least - the forecast NE which picked up and we we

Had a cracking sail, but the wind went NE sooner than we’d hoped - so we’re stopped at Sir Graham Moore island for the night. We’ll move to Talbot Bay tomorrow…

The wind pattern at the moment is for light S or SE winds in the morning, dropping off to near nothing by 9am, then a strong NW to NE sea breeze in the afternoon which can reach into the 15-20knots or so. So we do dinghy trips in the morning - and yesterday it was Jar Island. We headed across the channel to the N side of the island but could see hordes from the cruise ship which had arrived overnight, so we continued around to the west side.The west side isn’t very popular with the cruise ship

The big draw card items here in Vansittart Bay are the Douglas C-53 wreck and Jar Island. We’ll do Jar Island tomorrow. Today we headed out early (well, not quite as early as I had planned due to the crew sleeping in :), to see the airplane. We could have taken the big boat, but its just 3nm away and the dinghy goes well. Heatwave, another catamaran who was in Freshwater Bay with us for a few nights but spent last night at Jar Island, must have been up earlier as they were leaving (in the big

We moved from Freshwater Bay further down into Vansittart Bay - as did the 2 other boats we were anchored with. They headed off to Jar Island to see the rock art sites. We chose to head to Long Island and use it as a base to head to the DC3 wreck, and also some rock art on the mainland.Part of the game around here is guessing the tides. We had wildly different high tide times compared to Neringa. They used Navionics, but I checked my Navionics and it agreed with the 2 other sources I use. A bit