After the 4WD campervan trip around the Kimberley, we joined a small cruise boat run by Odyssey Expeditions in Wyndham. Twenty passengers and five crew in a 24 metre motor catamaran.
The trip exceeded our expectations, and took us to some stunning wilderness in an amazing part of the world.
Video overview
The Berkeley River
Freshwater Creek
King George River
Odyssey from the drone
George caught a nice barramundi
Bradshaw art on Jar Island in Vansittart Bay
The issue of the ancient art in the Kimberley is complex, fascinating, and sometimes controversial. The two main types are Gwion Gwion (aka Bradshaw Art) and Wandjina.
The age of the art is disputed, but a fair estimate for Gwion Gwion is 12,000 years, and for Wandjina 4,000 years.
Joseph Bradshaw was a pastoralist in the Kimberley in the 1890s, and he catalogued many of the older paintings. Graeme Walsh is a more recent archaeologist who has studied them.
Bradshaw Rock Art – Who painted it?
Walsh held a controversial view that the Gwion Gwion paintings were created by people who preceded aborigines in Australia.
On our trip, we were shown many examples of both the Gwion Gwion paintings and the more recent Wandjina paintings. In retrospect I should have liked to have read more about them before we got there.
We had to scramble up some rocky paths on remote islands to get to it.
This is Wandjina art at Swift Bay, near the Mitchell Plateau. Maybe 4,000 years old.
There was more Wandjina art at Wary Bay on Bigge Island.
George resting among some amazing rocks on Bigge Island.
More beautiful rocks
A western looking ship. Presumably from the last two hundred years.
Plenty of saltwater crocodiles; very dangerous
Various waterfalls. A common trick was to nose the bow of the boat under the waterfall and give passengers a shower.
A few of the passengers were physically challenged.
Margaret and Tom going ashore at Careening Bay, with a little help from their friends
The crew did a terrific job helping, with a few nervous moments.
Kings Cascade on the Prince Regent River
Odyssey from the top of Kings Cascade
We visited Montgomery Reef, a large reef about 300 square km, which when the spring tide is dropping, features the whole perimeter pouring water.
Next through the mass of islands in the Buccaneer Archipelago.
The Horizontal Waterfall
Lasagna cliffs
Sunset at Talbot Bay
