Sat 8th, Horizontal Falls Overnighter

Chris has been awake since 3am this morning so it is an early start at 6:10am. There have been stars overnight and the morning brings a light cloud cover. Hopefully good weather for the horizontal falls.

Jeff has had the bright idea that we leave the camper trailers at Windjana and pick them up again on Sunday morning. I've agreed as long as the morning looks like enough sunshine to power the camper trailer's solar panels otherwise I'm going to need to tow it to do so. We pack up the CT, secure it and then leave it.

Off we set for Derby where we do shopping for 3 weeks on the Gibb River Road and afterwards are picked up at 2:15pm for the Horizontal Falls overnighter from the King Sound Resort.

We are taken by bus to the local airport where two Sea planes await the overnight passengers. We fly directly north to the horizontal falls, this is the short route with only limited viewing of the coastline. We fly over the horizontal falls for an arial view and then land and taxi to a platform. Our destination for the evening is a mixture of accomodation vessels and platforms all lashed together. Platforms include boat and seaplane morings, shark feeding and swimming areas, a bar being newly constructed.

Outer and inner falls.

Program for the day depends on the tide. First up is afternoon tea with a briefing followed by shark feeding and swimming with sharks in cages next to the feeding areas.

When the tide is suitable we go out to the 1st & 2nd waterfalls in an 800hp boat powered by three outboards. We sit in the falls on the outer fall then do several high speed runs through it. Time for the inner much narrower fall which we sit near then go back for an approach run to hit it at speed.

We then got for a run down one of the nearby creeks where we see some of the gear which was in use a few short years ago. An old barge that used to be used for staff accomodation, an old small platform, moorings which they have purchased from a previous owner. They use this area for mooring their boats in the off season. There has obviously been a huge $ investment over the past few years.

Accomodation is quite good apart from a lack of room to get around the bed and not enough hooks to hang wet stuff on.

Dinner is a barra BBQ washed down with wine which we have had to bring in as part of our 5kg bag allowance. We've lightened our load by pouring the wine into Platypus wine bladders which weigh 68g as against the 700g of a bottle.

 

Posted with Blogsy