Horizontal Falls

We booked our tour several weeks ago with Horizontal Falls Seaplane Adventures. We were taking the full day tour from Broome.  

The 4wd tour bus picked us up from our accommodation at 05:20 along with another eight passengers. Leaving the bitumen behind we were soon on the Cape Leveque Road heading north. The first 14 km is bitumen with the next 86 km of rough dirt road with absolutely endless corrugations and a road base which was set like concrete but is full of holes and dips hidden by soft sand. Thommo our driver was moving from side to side in an effort to pick the best line with the least amount of corrugations but that was just a losing battle. He referred to the road as being "very ordinary", but I would have used stronger words than that. Of course these tour buses unlike ourselves don't bother in reducing their tyre pressures because they are all running to a schedule and we would never end up getting to our destination. IMHO I think speed and not reducing pressures may add to these road conditions. The 86 km dirt section took us 1 1/2 hours to complete.

We finally made the bitumen and stopped in at Beagle Bay to view the Sacred Heart Church. German priests who were interned here during World War One in 1914 and with the help of the local people began to build the church in 1918. Modeled on a photograph of a German country parish church it took two years to build and another year to decorate. Mother of pearl shell has been used extensively around the altar and as inlay along the floor.

Leaving Beagle Bay we continued north to Kooljaman Resort for a hot breakfast in their restaurant overlooking the western beach. We spent just on twenty minutes on the beach after breakfast before continuing for another 14 km onto One Arm Point for a tour of the aquaculture hatchery. Here we viewed tropical reef fish, trochus shell and feed huge barramundi housed in holding tanks. 

We were then transported to the airport where we boarded our 14 seat seaplane for the flight to the Horizontal Falls. We were flying into quite a strong headwind for the journey to Talbot Bay. Our flight path took us quite low across the Buccaneer Archipelago which is made up of more that 1000 islands.

Our plane was even supplied with a co-pilot:

Except for the wind during our flight our weather was perfect with beautiful blue skies and an amazing view. Our pilot made a perfect landing on Talbot Bay and we motored towards the pontoon. 

This whole setup is by no means small. The main pontoon in the photo above houses the people doing half day, full day and overnight tours. The smaller vessel at the top of the picture provides accommodation for people doing one of their four day tours. After our three planes dropped everyone off who were doing the Broome tour the pilots were off again to pick up more people from Derby, before returning later in the afternoon to transport us home to Broome. At one point we estimate at least seventy people on the pontoons and at a cost of a full day tour of $845 per person its quite staggering. 

After lunch we boarded our boats which looked more like Zodiacs on steroids, with their three motors equaling 900 hp.  

We ventured through bays and creeks before making our way back to the Horizontal Falls. We were taken into Cyclone Creek with its deep anchorage and which is surrounded by steep hills making it the perfect location to moor their pontoons during the wet and cyclone seasons.

Ros also took to the air in one of the helicopters for that birds-eye view. I declined because I'm not into flying where they forget to install the doors:

View of the 4wd's lined up along Cable Beach just before we touched down after a very enjoyable but very tiring day: