Posts In The “Australia” Category

Leaving Australia

Leaving Australia

Relatively few pleasure craft clear out of Australia at Dampier—we didn’t know of any that had. For us, it worked out well—our exit was smooth and efficient. John Lally, commodore of the local Hampton Harbour Boat and Sailing Club (HHBSC), was very welcoming and helpful in answering our questions prior to arrival. The HHBSC has…

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Darwin to Dampier

Darwin to Dampier

After leaving Darwin, we ran 1,000nm south to Dampier, where we planned to exit Australia for the 3,000-mile Indian Ocean crossing to Rodrigues, Mauritius. En route to Dampier, we stopped off for a few days in the southernmost portion of the Kimberley coast that we’d missed on our previous trip. We chose Dampier because it…

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Darwin week 5

Darwin week 5

Our third road trip after Litchfield and Kakadu National Parks was to Northline Speedway to take in the sprint car action on their clay oval. We spent the last few days in Darwin at anchor in Fannie Bay before heading out across the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf to start the 1,000nm run to Dampier where we…

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Kakadu National Park

Kakadu National Park

World Heritage Listed Kakadu National Park is known for incredible natural beauty and impressive rock paintings. Kakadu also is full of walking tracks that would take many days to cover. Since we only had a day, we picked the ones that appeared to have the most interesting scenery and views. Trip highlights from August 6th…

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Litchfield National Park

Litchfield National Park

The Litchfield National Park boundary is about 70 miles (114km) from Darwin and takes just over an hour to reach. We rented a car for a few days and made a couple of road trips, the first to Litchfield. We’d had a great time visiting the park–the scenery was beautiful, the falls were more active…

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Darwin weeks 2-4

Darwin weeks 2-4

A few days after we arrived back in Darwin, James returned to Seattle for three action-packed weeks back at work. While he was gone, Jennifer got Dirona and Spitfire ready to leave Australia and head out across the Indian Ocean to South Africa. Of the three pleasure-craft marinas in Darwin, we chose Tipperary Waters mainly…

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Darwin week 1

Darwin week 1

After five weeks in the Kimberley, we returned to Darwin for James to make a three-week trip to the US. You might wonder why we retraced our steps 500 miles to Darwin from the southern Kimberley rather than fly out from much closer Broome. We had initially considered staying there, but it turns out Broome…

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Drysdale River

Drysdale River

The Drysdale River has several miles of sandbars to negotiate, and isn’t considered as scenic as some of the other rivers in the Kimberley. So we skipped it on the westerly run and stopped there on the return trip after leaving Freshwater Bay. Rather than take on the sandbars, we anchored at the mouth and…

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Shelter Bay to Freshwater Bay

Shelter Bay to Freshwater Bay

Shelter Bay was featured in the Nordhavn 2012 calender with Rick MacClure‘s photo of Nordhavn 55 Skie. When we first saw that picture, we couldn’t imagine being in such a wild-looking place. Continuing east from Murrara Island, we found ourselves right in that photo, in beautiful and protected Shelter Bay. We explored the area by…

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Wilson Point to Murrara Island

Wilson Point to Murrara Island

Montgomery Reef was the last major Kimberley highlight on our list. From there, we returned back east towards Darwin at a more leisurely pace. We got a few boat projects done along the way and explored some areas, such as Hanover Bay Inlet, that we’d just skimmed past on the westerly “hit-the-highlights” run. Trip highlights…

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Montgomery Reef

Montgomery Reef

The tidal phenomena at Montgomery Reef is a product of the region’s extreme tidal exchanges. The 154 sq mi (400 sq km) reef is covered at high tide, but as the tide falls over 4m of reef can be exposed, and the water inside pours out in increasingly active waterfalls. It’s best seen from a…

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Doubtful Bay

Doubtful Bay

Doubtful Bay has several attractions, including impressive rock paintings, dramatic scenery and waterfalls. We ran from Talbot Bay to Doubtful Bay on the start of our return trip east to Darwin. Leaving Talbot Bay, we realized that not only was this the most westerly point on our journey so far, but we are nearly one…

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Horizontal Falls

Horizontal Falls

Horizontal Falls are two narrow gorges about 300m apart that connect two saltwater basins. As the tide goes up and down outside in Talbot Bay, water can’t flow in or out of the basins fast enough to keep up. The result is extreme tidal currents and waterfalls sometimes several meters high on large tidal exchanges….

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Prince Regent River

Prince Regent River

King Cascade Falls in the Prince Regent River are one of the major Kimberley attractions. The falls are about 35 miles from the sea entrance at Brunswick Bay, and reaching them requires careful timing on the tides. The waters at the approach into St. George Basin can be turbulent in large exchanges, and sandbars impede…

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Hunter River

Hunter River

Our next stop after the Mitchell River was the Hunter River. While we were excited to see a crocodile or two in the previous rivers, here we pretty much lost count of the crocodile sightings. We passed one that was rearing out of the water to smash its catch against the shore, and captured video…

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Mitchell River

Mitchell River

We made an overnight run from the King George River to the Mitchell River. We didn’t need to run overnight as there are plenty of anchorage on the way. But we’re moving quickly to visit the rivers as early as possible since their flow will slowly be diminishing in the dry season. We’ll coastal-cruise on…

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King George River

King George River

We loved the Berkeley River, but the King George was even more spectacular. A narrow gorge leads from about halfway into the river to twin several-hundred-foot waterfalls at the head. The water is deep enough in front of both falls to bring the boat up fairly close, and we had just enough swing room to…

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Berkeley River

Berkeley River

After an overnight run from Darwin across the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, we spent three nights in the Berkeley River. This was our first time in Western Australia’s famed Kimberley region and it definitely is one of our top ten destinations ever. The scenery was incredible, and we saw our first crocodiles in the wild. Traveling…

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