It all started with a 6:40am pickup by Sadie, owner of Fly Broome from our hotel. Several stops later and 7 persons heavier our little van arrived at Broome Airport for our half day flight to Horizontal Falls, Dampier Peninsula, with a quick stop in Kooljaman.
The arrangement was to be two planes, one larger, slower propeller plane and our plane, a Cessna, the slightly smaller but quicker aircraft. Our pilot Eugene decided on our seating arrangement, and so I sat middle left, next to a pillar. The window forward of the pillar had a green tint and behind the pillar it was pink. Two tints that would end up being the bane of this photography experience. I then made the mistake of slowing my shutter speed too much at the beginning, but later compensated by sticking to iso800 to eliminate motion blur at f/9.0.
We flew north east along the route on the map. The first segment mostly across never ending identical desolate land with the odd ridiculously straight road cutting through the landscape.
For the entire flight of course we had headphones and mics and were encouraged to talk, even when all I wanted to do is take in the scenery. We flew across King Sound and as we cleared the water and crossed the Kimbolton Ranges, the view was just spectacular.
Horizontal Falls, which was sold as the highlight of the flight was just beyond the ranges. The usual attraction is a flight to the Horizontal Falls, followed by a motorboat ride through the falls themselves. Unfortunately on this occasion, either because it was out of season or fully booked, we couldn’t get on that type of excursion.
We did a few turns around the falls then continued west towards Cape Leveque, landing at Kooljaman. Ironically, this is exactly where we tried to get to but failed in the motorhome. We stopped for a cooked breakfast and fruit platter and then drove down to the red cliffs of Cape Leveque.
The pindan (sandy red) cliffs are sacred amongst the aboriginal cultures so we didn’t climb them. Instead, we jumped back into the cars and went for a dip on the north beaches.
We returned to the plane where I requested a seat on the back row (it was worth the request). I kept taking photos until we landed (and my camera almost ran out of battery).
