Ponant Kimberley Cruise - Day 11 - Montgomery Reef / Freshwater Cove
THURSDAY 2 MAY – Day 11
Today is our day to explore the Montgomery Reef. We gave ourselves a sleep in and easy breakfast before our 9.30am departure. I think I may be nearly egged out – eggs benedict with smoked salmon or the egg of the day every day on board, scrambles and omelettes with different fillings – today was asparagus and cheese. The scrambled egg with smoked salmon was nice too. My goal (since it's on every buffet) is to eat smoked salmon for at least 2 meals per day the whole cruise – I am nearly there!
The Montgomery Reef trip was very cool. It was a hot morning and a little bit of chop to “surf” over in the zodiacs, but calm as anything once we were in the bay formed by the reef – locals call it “The River” – the actual reef is over 80km long and has a surface area of over 400 square km (which is about 1/10 the size of the Great Barrier Reef). We were on the last of the trips out today, and the timing was perfect. We got to the reef in less than 10 minutes. Then we just pottered around as the tide was going out slowly, but there would have been somewhere between 75cm to a metre exposed. Its not coral but a type of algal buildup that forms the reef, and there is an abundance of bird life that come down looking for food when its that time of day. The waters around the reef contain sharks, green sea turtles (so named due to the colour of their fat/blubber) and sea snakes (we know because we saw all of these!). We missed out on bull rays but I was very happy with what we saw. The tides in this region seem to be key to everything, with the large tidal range supporting so many different environments for land based and marine based ecosystems to be so unique compared to anywhere else in the world.
It was a bit funny watching the groups before us coming back – just like a scene from a James Bond film with a flotilla of zodiacs in formation zipping across the water converging on our vessel. Lucky for us (I use that word a lot, but luck is what it is) the wind dropped a fair bit while we were out so when we came out of the protection of the reef for the 10-15min trip back to the Le Laperouse, no one got wet at all and the ride, though a bit bumpy, was certainly manageable. The people coming in before us got soaked literally from head to toe. At least they would have been cool.
I am just so full of good food from the last week that I did not even look at the menu for lunch today. A good feed from the salad bar (lettuce, tomato, quinoa, 3 different types of nuts and a beautiful rice salad with sweet potato and citrus dressing) and I was done. Until I saw the dessert bar that is….. and then I had to try the giant chocolate chip cookie slice, and finished with the chocolate tart with a layer of amazing raspberry underneath. AND todays special on the bread table was a herb bread baked with chunks of chorizo and topped with cheese. The ship has a baker on board who is up at 2am every day baking to give us the most amazing array of fresh breads and baguettes to enjoy.
This afternoon’s landing has the option of doing a “short” or “long” walk. I have opted out of the long walk today for a few reasons, and this is why you should attend the daily recaps and briefings in the theatre each night – to know what is going on. The long walk is at least 45min each way, in the quite intense heat, to get to a cave with some Aboriginal Rock Art – waiting for you at the cave is a local Traditional Owner who will tell you the stories of the art from his authentic point of view, as the stories in the paintings are always local and specific to the traditional owners of the land on which you are visiting. However, we land in the middle of the day (hottest part) and there is come scrambling over rocks involved and there are not enough crew to have them stationed all the way along, so you must be fit and confident about the terrain you will cover. I am fit but not confident on the scrambling as my wrists are dodgy if I need to support myself, and I am not sure how I would go in the heat. The goal of this long walk is the Rock Art, and we have visited two sites already to hear about the art (although not from an indigenous viewpoint) and that has satisfied me. A nice walk along the beach and a short walk to see some local craft will be nice for me to enjoy.
Those who did the long walk thoroughly enjoyed it although it was a challenge on the knees for many people coming back down again due to the terrain. One highlight that was particularly haunting/interesting was just before the entry to the cave they were met by Warren, their guide, who called out to his spiritual ancestors (in an action that was like him howling to an invisible entity) to let them know that they were coming, and then after he had done that, he said it was now safe and they were very welcome. Our friends who did the walk described it as eerie in a good way, a little spiritual.
The folk NOT doing the long walk went over to the beach a little after the walkers…. We landed on the beach and were met by a Traditional Owner (Gideon) who welcomed us to country with a few little stories, painted our faces with ochre, and then off we went. We listened to him talk of the chores he had to do as a child, talk on how to make resin for glue and weapons, how they use dead pandanis leaves as paint brushes, how hard it is to crack the fruit from that tree to eat, and how he and his family come to this place from Derby for a few weeks each season by boat (with supplies) and just live here on the land. It is very sad that the local snake, wallaby, bird and reptile population is being critically affected by the cane toad. We were told that the cane toads are evolving through selective breeding to have longer legs that allow them to jump further and move faster across the countryside, escape predators more easily, and that is the population that has spread across from Qld to now be in the Kimberley, and be a real problem. There are all sorts of ethical solutions in place to try and eradicate them – one is the making sausage meat for the local fauna with the tiniest bit of cane toad toxin in them to make them sick (not kill them) and to try and encourage a new learned behaviour to not eat the toads, and that way not die from ingesting them.
We wandered up to see a huge termite nest and learn about all the good things they do in a natural habitat (rather than eat houses in suburbia!), and while talking here saw a big osprey on a tree branch right beside their nest. It seemed that once the bird knew we were looking he hopped in to the nest and out of view of the camera lenses.
Then back to the beach to see a freshwater creek that spouts to the surface right in the middle of the tidal rock platform from an underground source. It is so weird – the rocks are completely submerged with the ocean tides, however when they recede the water (which never stops running) flushes out the rockpools with fresh clean water and refills them – this is the source of drinking water for the indigenous people who live here now. You can always tell if there is freshwater about somewhere as there will be Pandanis growing – pandanis cannot thrive in a salt water environment.
Then finally a wander back up the beach to pass through the smoke made on a small fire with green eucalyptus leaves and tempered with sand for us to “wash” the smoke over ourselves, to cleanse us of any bad spirits, before we headed back to the ship – this part of the trip was just as important as the welcome to country and was described as a “must do” experience out of respect if nothing else, and it was very disappointing that from a group of about 20, only 5 of us wandered back up the beach to be cleansed at the end of our visit (and that figure included our guide Sarah) - this is today's photo, taken by Steve.
Wonderful, easy, interesting and of course stunningly beautiful, zodiac excursion.