Day 96 Horizontal Water Falls

Horizontal Water Falls sounds at first really strange, but the more you read about it, the more you get fascinated and it ends up on your bucket list. There are only 2 known horizontal water falls in the world and the one in Australia is the only one you can visit -> so we booked a half-day tour, not inexpensive...

After pick-up at your overnight accommodation and drive to the Derby airport, which is completely empty, you have to watch a short security video before you can board the funny looking amphibian plane. Your life vest ist not under the seat in front of you but around your hips already with boarding.

Then it is about 45min scenic flight to the floating deck in the Talbot Bay Area. At first all the waterways are brown and dirty, then you fly over some land with hills (gets bumpy in the plane...) before there is water again, this time turquoise blue. From a distance you can see the floating deck, where the plane lands in a safe distance on the water and drives on to the side of the floating deck. The floating deck is the hub, from which you do your boat trips, where you get your food & drinks and where you could even stay overnight, if you wish to. We were lucky, the floating deck was still out of the cyclone creek as in about a week they have to move it for safety issues before they stop one month later all flights til the end of the wet season.

First boat trip is to slug island, where the tour guide gave some information on the area, traditional owners, birds and explained why the water has this color (some kind of mineral in the water - so the water is not clear, but actually pretty sandy).

After some morning tea and cake, there is another boat trip to the Talbot Bay cyclone creek, a sheltered bay, where the cyclones won´t do any damage to ships. Going into this creek by boat you have the mini horizontal waterfalls, as the tide with a change of water height of over 9m that day is flowing into the creek through a pretty small gap, although not as small as the actual horizontal water falls and therefore not as spectacular.

Before heading of to the falls it is time for lunch. Of course, the main lunch was Barramundi, like it is often on tours in the Kimberlys, but as a vegie, this time I was very lucky to get a very good replacement meal and not just some salad leaves. On the floating deck they also had a shark free enclosure, where you can have a swim to cool down (very hot, but the wind is finde), but with all the sand in the water the main reason is to experience the tide: as soon as you are in the water the pressure of the flowing water pushes you to the edge of the enclosure and you have to work hard to get back... Next to the shark-free enclosure they feed a bit of fish to the sharks, so you can see them close-up. There were some smaller sharks, but also a bigger bull shark (known for most of the shark attacks) coming close. The sharks can come and go as they like and as the floating deck is only around for about 6 month they still need to know how to find food on their own to survive. It explained, why in the safety introductions they always mentioned to walk in the middle on the ways of the floating deck and if unsure to use handrails, because falling into the water is pretty dangerous. There are also crocs and dolphins out in the waters, but we didn´t see them.

Finally it is time to drive to the horizontal falls as the tide change is now very high, so one could see lots of water flowing through the gap. It is a very fast passing through the gap over the horizontal waterfalls, so it is faster over than you could really see everything. Luckily the tour does not go only once through the gap, but a few times, so after all the excitement of the first ride through the gap you can start to enjoy it fully. After the horizontal waterfall you are in a kind of bay, but to the left and right, the water is not deep enough for a boat to go any further into the bay, just where the falls are the water is deep. Behind the horizontal waterfalls there is a second waterfall with a even smaller gap, so stronger current. The boat only goes near this waterfall but not through the gap, as the gap is too small, the water flowing to fast for a boat to reach the other bay safely.

After seeing the horizontal waterfalls by boat, it is time to leave the floating deck by plane for the flight back to Derby. On the flight back you loop over the horizontal waterfalls - very impressive views

From the plan you could see the Derby jetty, which was walking there a lot less impressive than from the plane. Back in our accommodation we caught Stuart having some ice-cream and enjoying his day off.