Early start today, 6:30am breakfast, we’re up around 6am. It was still dark, so we took the opportunity to go out on our balcony a look at the night sky. So many stars, and the Milky Way.
As the sun was rising we saw that we were anchored just a little south of the entrance to the Horizontal Waterfalls.
So special.
After breakfast we went out on one of the Explorers to have a cruise around bits of Talbot Bay, taking in the scenery and looking for wildlife. We didn’t see any wallabies or quolls, but did see a few different birds and a mud crab.
The tidal flow between some of the narrower channels we passed through was significant, with lots of small whirlpools and current streams very evident. You can actually see the water rising on the shoreline if you stop and observe for a few minutes. Talbot Bay has variations of up to 11m between low and high tides. The colours on the rocks as the sun hit them was amazing, so vibrant.
Our cruise took us along many shores, mainly mangroves or shear rock faced. Around the mangroves I saw a mud crab on the shore, schools of mullet and other smaller fish. There many different birds as well, from cockatoos to pied Butcher birds and a White quilled rock Pigeon.
We got back to the boat around 9:40am and had morning tea from the Bridge Lounge out on or balcony while we watched boats head into the Horizontal Waterfalls. #Retiredlyf
We watched a seaplane take off from just in front of the entrance to the Horizontal Waterfalls, and then two came in to “land” just after that. We were told that you can stay at the Horizontal Waterfalls in accommodation at the boat ride operations.
This afternoon was Horizontal Waterfalls time. Our boat has its own 6 seater Zodiacs, so we did the falls in them. The round trip was about 20 minutes. We were in Zodiac 11, the 2nd or 3rd last to make the run.
It was approaching high tide when we went through the wide, first gap, falls. The difference in water height was between half and 1m. The ride was more of up a slope than up through falls, but it was lots of fun.
We cruised around and up towards the inner narrower falls, but didn’t go through them, but then due to the tragic accident here last year no one goes through them. We went through the wide gap twice, the second time we encouraged our driver to go quicker. We aren’t sure he went quicker, but he certainly weaved sharper and more going through. It was lots of fun regardless and it’s a tick off our bucket list.
Late afternoon we had a lecture on “Extreme Tides of the World” by Ray. It turns out that the main factors influencing our tides are the moon and sun. 54% & 46% respectively, along with a whole lot of topographical, wind, seismic, etc influences. The biggest tidal variance in the world is 26.3m at Bay of Fundy and Ungava Bay. In Australia it’s about 14m in the Kimberley area. It was an interesting lecture, particularly the bit about standing tidal waves and someone surfing one 14km up a river.
And all that completed our day, now it time to refresh to get ready to explore some more tomorrow.
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