Aira and Kit's Kimberley Adventures

 Today at 11.39am we will be picked up by helicopter on a beach and taken to Mitchell Falls to catch a light plane back to Broome. I will post something later if I can. In the meantime you can never have enough rock art - we took a cruise on Homer to an island, and saw some more Wandjina art. We had to lie down to see it on the bottom of an overhang. There were some turtle tracks on the beach. One of the trees had a (old) green ant nest in it, but no green ants to be seen. And there was an osprey nest on the rocks at the side of the beach. And a last rock formation! We made it back to Broome mid afternoonish. We had a short helicopter flight from a beach to Mitchell Falls airstrip. Then a roughly (I say that advisedly) 2 hour flight on a small single engine Cessna to Broome. I was in the back seat, very squashed. Very hazy so photos not good. We were both exhausted. What an amazing country! So grateful for the opportunity to do this! Tomorrow homeward bound and I can’t wait!

 So last night we had a visitor - surprise surprise - a huge crocodile who just hung around all night. Then we went to a beautiful lagoon for a swim, and walked about 500 metres to another rock art site. This was probably the most comprehensive site - a variety of different pictures. But first, some pics on the way there. Fiddler crabs, the bird is a rail of some kind, a baby crocodile on the bank, and Kit fishing.   And an unknown bird that I had trouble catching. Then the lagoon and the rock art site. This is all Wandjina art. The last pic has small bowls in it where they may have mixed the ochres. This is a jabiru- saw it up a little creek off the main waterway. Bonfire on the beach. You would be horrified because they didn’t put it out when we left - the tide will put it out when it comes up.  And whose footprints ae these?

 Today some of the people went fishing in the morning, this is what they caught Kit caught two sharks this time, but not these. We went to Careening Bay, where Phillip Parker King careened (pulled boat up dry to clean). His Majesty’s Cutter, Mermaid, was on this beach for 15 days to clean and repair. There was a boab tree - mermaid, so called because it had two trunks. King’s carpenter inscribed “HMC Mermaid 1820”. Early graffiti! And further along he path is an abandoned bower bird bower. Then off to Boongaree Island to a rock art site. So there are two main art forms in the Kimberley. One is the Gwion Gwion or Bradshaw form, around 17000 years old. The other is the Wandjana, which is more contemporary and sometimes painted over the Gwion Gwion. The first pic is the GG or Bradshaw, the rest are Wandjana, tall stick figures that no one knows quite how they were made. The last pic in that group is of some grinding or sharpening grooves close by. Found a very peculiar lizard, or skin...