Our first day was a sea day so while we were busy and had fun, I will say no more. Well I will point out to you that we will not visit a city or town until we get to Broome which is the end of the journey. You cannot drive to any of the places we are going. You can get relatively close to some of them, but never where we will be. The next day was our first "port" day. We went to the opening for King George River and its twin waterfalls.
While it is remote, Seabourn keeps its reputation up and serves a glass of champagne when we get to the falls.
King George Falls
King George River meanders from the two waterfalls till it reaches the bay and thus the ocean. The twin waterfalls are also called Ooman and are the highest in Western Australia. We are here at the beginning of dry season, so the waterfalls are running but will dry up over the next couple of months. We are out on the zodiacs for over 2 hours for the trip. As we start, we are lucky and see a rock wallaby and then lots of birds. We hunt for a croc but do not see one. We do see an osprey, several other birds and our guide points out a couple of plants such as Kimberly Heath. The waterfalls are from 1 river that splits when it reaches the end of the rock wall.
osprey nest that has been used for YEARS
Osprey
Twin Falls
champagne delivery
Oh those rock walls. There is no art here, but the walls themselves are quite impressive. Actually, the combination of the reddish straight walls and the blue water is stunning. We were looking at some of the oldest sandstone on the planet. The sandstone is white, but the rain lets iron ore leach out which turns the rocks to red. We see places where pieces of rock have been washed off by the weather. The walls are not smooth because they have broken down some over time. We saw some that had been "honeycombed". The main rock had been so weakened by the water and weather that little pieces of the rock and its shell were gone and more of the rocks had been lost leaving rock walls that literally look like honeycombs.
honeycomb rocks/walls
Pied cormorant drying its wings
Jar Island
Our second "port" is Jar Island which really is a little island in the middle of Vansittart Bay. We are here for the Gwion Gwion rock art. We visit 2 art sites and one burial area. We get here by zodiac and have a "wet landing" in that we had to step in about 4 inches of water.
a zodiac with the people disembarking
Let me back up. The rock art here is very different than the art we saw in Kakadu. The art here is of mostly ancient people while we do see some very old animals too. There are 4 stages of rock art people here. The tassel people, the sash people, elegant action and the peg people. No one really knows for sure if they have the order correct because the people who drew this are long gone and the local tribes while still wearing some similar outfits have no memory of this island.
Crab on right, fish head on left
Tassel People: experts believe the first style is the tassel people and, in the drawings, they do have tassels on their arms and legs and are standing straight up.
no their heads are not huge rather that is a headdress
Sash people: instead of tassels on their arms they have wide bands or sashes, and they too are stationary.
Elegant action people: and yes they have bent knees and a little meat on their bodies but no sashes or tassels.
see how the leg on the right is bent
Peg people were the last type. The peg as in a clothesline peg. Like the first 2 groups they are stationary.
peg person
All of these drawings we look at have been "touched up" by nature in that the reason we can still see parts of the drawings is that bacteria liked the pigment used in the paintings and what we actually see is that bacteria. When there is a gap, it is because the artist used a different pigment that the bacteria did not like thus it has faded from view. We walk to the first site and have the art pointed out to us.
listening to our expedition leader
We then head for the second site and pass the burial site on the way. We were not allowed to photograph the buial site. Seems they bured their elders here by placing their bodies on a stone bed and protecting it from animals until only bones were left when they then placed them in the nooks and cranies of the local rocks. The second art rock site involved a little more adventure in that we laid down to see some of it. Our guides called it sitting in the dentist chair.
Carol in the "dentist" chair looking at art
some of the safe local wildlife
We ended our time on the island with a little walk on the beach and exploring a small cave.
not exactly a cave
Ashmore Reef
Ashmore Reef serves a dual purpose for us. First it is a "port" where we will explore and second it is far enough away from mainland Australia that it qualifies as leaving the country which we must since this is not an Australian cruise line. It took a while for the ship to make it here (an afternoon and all night at a good speed). We arrive in the morning hoping that conditions are good for snorkeling. Oh yeah, we are further out to sea then the crocs go. The reef is a marine protected area, and we see an Australian Coast Guard ship here when we first arrive. We will go out to snorkel in groups of 20 or so; Jeff and I are in the middle of the groups. You go out to the snorkel spot by zodiac on a prescribed route with buoys - made me think of the water roads in Venice. The reef is kind of in a horseshoe shape with our snorkeling area in the middle. There is also an island with lots of birds that some people visit instead of snorkeling. The reef is a popular stopover spot for migrating birds.
breakers over the edge of the reef
our taxi, though not us
Our snorkel spot off in the distance
passengers reaching the snorkeling spot, same photo as above
The snorkeling was quite good we had lots of coral to see and a nice amount of fish. I liked the blue starfish we saw and I saw a clam that was closed up, but its iridescent ridges gave it away. We snorkeled for 45 minutes which was not long enough for Jeff, but he grudgingly got out of the water. The ship was really rather close to us, but there was reef/coral in between so back out the road for 15 - 20 minutes. we left a little before dinner time so we could get to our next stop early in the morning. Thanks to Harry, ship's photographer Seabourn Pursuit for the underwater pictures he took below.
Blue clam I saw
tiger shark
We saw lots of blue star fish
As we exit the reef we watch from the Bow. We are fortunate to see wildlife and a sail boat.
Indonesian fishing boat
flying fish
Flying fish
see the fish in the bottom middle, there was also a large number of Terns
Hunter River
The tides in this part of the world can rule your plans and thus was the case here. We got here as the tide crested so that we could take the zodiacs out as the tide was going out, but you can't stay out too long, or you'll get caught in a mud flat. I should add we were exploring the porosus creek and porosus is the scientific name for a saltwater crocodile. As the name implies there is a large population of crocodiles here so no getting out of the boat and preferably no getting stuck! In addition to crocs, we see several types of small animals, birds and lots of mangroves. The mangroves grow at the water edge while we are there but will be partially underwater during high tide. Like King George Falls, the walls are sandstone for the most part and pretty. Here there is also a soft volcanic stone that crumbles easily producing a rich soil. In little patches, there are tropical rainforests here. They then blend into either the mangrove or eucalyptus groves on either side.
We find a logadille, before we find our first true croc. We will see a couple lounging on the embankments and some swimming. On the embankments we also see red crabs and a mud skipper.
Red Crab
Click here for a funny but informative video on the mud skipper.
We also see fruit bats eating from an apple mangrove tree, brhomley kites, white sea eagles and several smaller birds. While 2 1/2 hours is a long time to sit on a zodiac our time is up too fast and back to the ship we head. We have the afternoon off while another group goes out at the afternoon tides then we are having a deck party at sundown tonight probably while we start to leave this pretty bay. As we sit on the ship, we are pretty much surrounded by small islands. So far all of the places we have visited have been quite pretty. It is nice to sit on deck or on our balcony and enjoy the view.
Oh, what have I done?!! I agreed to the 7am zodiac to the farm. I said yes so we could possibly enjoy sunrise at the lookout point on the tour. I hated myself when the alarm went off, but I hopped out of bed and got dressed. Jeff went to a couple of places in search of a little bite to eat for us. Then it is off to the landing zone to hop on our zodiacs with 20 other souls. The sun rise was pretty, but we didn't see the main rise since we were busy learning about pearl farming. Jeff and I were afraid we were in for a hard sell at the end - nope not a peice of jewelry in sight. of course, in hindsight it is way to remote here to be making the actual jewelry.
We arrive at dawn
The tour started with some history of the place. It was started here in the 1930s by a combination of Japanese, Australian and Americans. Japanese knew how to farm the pearls so the knowledge guys, Australians were the land guys and Americans brought money. At this time, the oysters were wanted for their mother of pearl inside shell not their pearls. This part of Australia had a significant proportion of the world's oysters thus the location. As mother of pearl buttons lost favor they moved into farming the oysters for pearls.
They use a particular type of oyster for their pearls. They find the oysters in beds in an area of south of here called 80 mile beach. They bring those oysters to Kuri Bay where we were and start to "farm" then. They clean them regularly, they place a starter for the pearl in them, they keep them nice and warm, make sure each oyster has plenty of room to grow. They do this for 2 to 3 years. There was a lot of similarity to the oyster farm down Fort Morgan Road from us, but this is a larger and much longer operation.
The workers fly into here for rotations - couple of weeks on and then time off. There is no local town; they do have wifi and some TV and one room with air conditioning. Remember it is hot here. There is a freshwater spring on the property so they do have access to fresh water and each person has their own room. But they are on their own most of the time, like they have built cyclone shelters since they often are not able to leave before the storm arrives. Oh what do the workers do besides clean the outside of oyster shells? Well some of them are the divers that harvest the original oyster, some clean the shells, some place the starter in the oyster for the future pearls and then some things like chefs, etc.
All of their food is flown in by the Mallard Plane, no roads exist
They told us that Australia produces only 2% of the world's pearls but they are worth 20% of the worlds pearl population. This organization sells most of their pearls at wholesale and keeps 5% for their sales. This company is the only company in the world that starts with a wild oyster. The other pearl farming areas were over farmed, so they have to use stock oysters to start each one. Oh they can get an oyster to produce over 2 cycles so 2 individual pearls are produced.
Surprisingly big pearl 17mm; notice how big the oyseter is too
Click above on the video above
for the great reveal
We ended with a glass of champagne and some pearl meat. It is from the oyster but not the part you eat when you eat oysters. They said it was quite expensive and I will say our taste was quite nice. Jeff and I were pleasantly surprised by the tour. Then on it was the equivalent of a sea day for us. Some people took a tour from a late 1940's sea plane (the one the company uses).
Our ship in the distance
Mallard plane from late 1940s
Tawy shark ~9ft
We debated for some time, but decided those are clouds rather than an island
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