Looking around Oz: 18. OUR HORIZONTAL FALLS ADVENTURE

We spent a week or so in Derby, cleaning off the dust of the Gibb and enjoying the many exciting events and places in and around Derby.

They even had a Mardi Gras for the Boab Festival while we were there:

This float carried the Boab Queen entrants. Most of the crowd were made up of tourists, as I think somehow all the locals were on the floats. The local football club were having a ball!

We checked out the Prison Boab not far out of town. It is believed to be about 1500 years old.....amazing! It was used as a staging point for prisoners being walked into Derby in the early days.

And right alongside this was the longest trough, 120 metres long and could handle 500 bullocks at a time!

As you head back into Derby from here there is another unusual piece of history, being 'Frosty's Pool'

Built in 1944 as a bathing area for troops stationed here during WW2. It was named after one of the members of the platoon that constructed it.

As you can see its pretty much abandoned and left to the elements now, but I bet it would have been a much sought after place to cool off in the heat up here.

At last the reason for our waiting here had arrived and we were off on our Horizontal falls trip.

We had packed up the truck and camper and left them at the caravan park and were picked up and taken to the airport to board our plane.

Ok, so far so good....Never been a huge fan of flying but will give it a go! Meanwhile Dave is having fun watching the apprehension on my face. Next we get the safety run down before we board and have to put on our life jackets?????

The life jackets are those little bags strapped around our waists. We have to wear them as we are flying over water. But you don't really want to inflate them if you land in the water because its full of crocodiles and sharks, so it would be better to cling to the plane if we go down.

That's not exactly what he said but that's what I got out of the talk!

So we all climbed aboard and took our seats.

Little bit squeezy I think.

Then it was up in the air and leaving Derby behind.

I soon forgot my nerves once we were in the air as the views were just so spectacular!

With the sun on the water it was hard to see where the sea finished and the sky started.

And the patterns in the landscape from the waterways was fascinating.

At last we arrived at the place we had flown out to see, the Horizontal Falls.

Those two gaps in the the mountain ranges are where we are headed.

But first we have to land. There is our destination....in the bottom right hand corner of the picture.....a long way down!

Pretty soon after a few circuits of the area and a bit more sightseeing, we were landing beside the pontoons.

and checking out our transport, with 2 x 300 Horsepower engines, it could go 56 knots or 100 klm an hour.

and our Skipper Adrian.....What he couldn't do with this boat!!

As soon as we got on board, we were racing a sea plane that was taking off.

Then it was over to our houseboat for the night to dump our gear, put on bathers and head off for the falls and a cruise around the bays.

The scenery up here is just beautiful and the structure and patterns in some of the rocks are amazing. It makes you wonder what sort of forces could do this?

Then it was time to head for the falls, Adrian held off till it was the right time of the tide to get a thrilling run through, and he didn't disappoint us.

Hard to take a picture while you are hanging on and blasting through the turbulence but trust me it was great fun.

This is just hanging off the smaller gap....the power of that water is amazing and it continues to a depth of 50 metres. The reason for these falls is that there are such huge tide variances up here (up to 11 metres) that when the tide turns, the water has only a very small gap to get through and the pressure build up in each gap is incredible..........but it does make for a lot of fun!!