Monday 21st July, Delightful Destinations and Daring Deeds

Our ship, The Coral Adventurer, had travelled all night and when we awoke this morning, we were anchored in Talbot Bay adjacent to the Horizontal Falls and close to the moored pontoon, used by the sea planes which bring people here to visit the falls. Breakfast was early, 6:30am as we were heading out in the Explorer boats at 8.00am into Talbot Creek. This creek is often referred to as Cyclone Creek as this is where many boats, and some of the infrastructure is kept during a cyclone due to the protective nature of the surrounding topography. This cruise was very relaxing and slow paced allowing us to view the dramatic geology of the area as well as spotting wildlife and bird-life along the way. The two-hour cruise, in near perfect conditions was made more special by the morning sun reflecting the colours of the Kimberley. We returned to the ship and following lunch transferred to a zodiac, to experience the Horizonal Falls. The zodiacs were small, only holding 6 passengers so this meant we were close to the action. We thoroughly enjoyed racing through the first fall in the rolling waters, created by the tide trying to go out through a very narrow entrance. We also viewed the second falls which are even narrower but didn’t go through these. Unfortunately, at the end of 2026 all tour operators, except for Horizontal Falls Seaplane Adventures, will cease. The Horizontal Falls Seaplane Adventures will be able to continue boat trips until March 2028. Later in the afternoon we enjoyed another interesting presentation by the chief engineer, on the engine room compartments. Information about the building of the ship, the power, the production of water, the management of waste was all covered. This was a pre-curser to a tour of the engine room that will be held later in the trip. We had another beautiful dinner with a young travel journalist and photographer we had met at lunch, yesterday and another couple whose company we had enjoyed at dinner last night. We have been extremely fortunate meeting some lovely people and today we spent time with a couple of retired teachers from Perth. They had very similar interests to ours and we certainly enjoyed their company too. At breakfast, we met a couple of women who were a little older than us. They were from Adelaide and asked where we lived and when we said West Lakes, they then said oh we lived at Grange on the Esplanade, before West Lakes was even thought of. They said they had attended Grange Primary School and when I asked exactly where they lived, they described their home as being a large, old 2-storey stone building with a tennis court. I then asked, did they live in the “Lightburn” house on the seafront. They certainly did and were the daughters of Mr. Lightburn who was a famous for manufacturing, designing and engineering of all sorts of things in the 1950s and 60’s, in Adelaide, especially washing machines! I then told them that I grew up just down the road from this “famous” house at Tennyson. Such a small world!