Kimberley Air

So, i had an excellent opportunity to help some mates out and go into the field into the remote northern tip of Western Australia called the Kimberley. It was a chance to see a spectacular part of the country many people don't get to see due to its remoteness. The area of the Kimberley (which is vast in itself) that I visited  is called the Mitchell Plateau and it is approximately 2400 km from Perth and takes some time to get there. It was field work to collect insects so i couldn't very well say no even though i knew it was going to be tough terrain. However, the accommodation was luxury 'camping' so we were treated pretty well once we were back at camp. So i started by taking a plane from Broome to Perth, which was about 2 and a half hours, then a smaller charter plane for another 2 hours that dropped us at the airstrip closest to the camp.

 The campsite was pretty nice. Its usually used for special tour groups during the dry season and is normally closed for business in the wet (when we were there) but they opened it for us for the field survey.

 To get to the field sites a helicopter was chartered as there are very few roads in the area. As the project was a large scale field survey, they needed to get to the spread out field sites quickly and helicopter was the best option. It was my first time in a helicopter and i was a little nervous but i was impressed as to how smooth the ride was. and how great the view were!

 Aerial view of the camp.

 The chopper had to land in some hairy landing places but the skilled pilot could land on a dime, it was very impressive to see.

 The great Kimberley Boab trees, these trees were dotted here and there in the landscape, they must have been centuries old. Such an honour to meet them.

 Some of the mesas and buttes in this flooded landscape. It was the wet season and the great tidal flood plains were spectacular to see from the air.

 The landscapes were, for the most part, the very familiar ochre coloured outcrops of this ancient continent, but one of the field sites was on this black basalt (?) rock flow that seemed so very incongruous. When we landed in the adjacent mangrove and began our ascent to the field site, i was fascinated by the regularity of the boulders, some of which were the size of small cars. Needless to say, it was a tough climb up the big rocks.

 But the waterfalls and the beautiful river plains made up for the hardwork.

 And, even though it was wet season, we were really lucky and didnt have huge rainstorms pouring down on us every minute of the day. They did loom ominously but beautifully on the horizon each day.

 Horizontal Falls is actually on the way back to Broome, its a well known phenomenon where the humongous tides of the region (around 9 m) cause an immense surge of water in between these two gorges creating a water fall of sorts in the bay.

 Chasing the rain.

 An oxbow lake, almost!

 And there you have it. a most wonderful and fascinating place. So vast and empty, with only very small pockets of indigenous Australians living out their quiet lives on this remote coast line. I couldn't help but think about the teeming life and human bustle just across the way in the Indonesian archipelago. How over such a short strip of water (around 400 km), the landscape could change so dramatically. I feel very lucky to have experienced fieldwork at such a grand scale.