Twenty Twenty-Six
July - Christchurch and The
Kimberley
July 25 - Aboard Heritage Adventurer off the Kimberley Coast
of Western Australia. With no Arctic contract, I was pleased to
accept an offer from Heritage for 3 voyages in the Kimberley. Back
on 1983 I had driven from Darwin to Broome, but the road is a long
way from the coast. These voyages would be a first for me, meaning a
lot of learning, and considerable time preparing a new talk (Ancient
Australians) and recaps for the upcoming voyages. My 75th birthday
was spent mostly in the air between Christchurch and Broome. I was
then aboard for the first voyage - Broome to Darwin. The voyage
started with a number of Zodiac cruises into the mangroves and tidal
flats in among the sandstone cliffs and bays.Scenes from this period: Voyage 1: Crocodile, Fiddler crab, Boab trees, post sunset glow, Beach stone Curlew, inlet into the rocky landscape
August - The Kimberley and Christchurch
August 1 - enroute to Darwin to complete voyage 1. As the voyage went on, our activities became more land based with several visits to Aboriginal rock art sites. The rock art sits in the Kimberley include the ancient (~20,000 years or more) Gwion Gwion paintings and the more recent (~5000 years or less) Wandjina paintings. Both are remarkable. Most of the sites visited were one or the other, with the last site having Gwion Gwion art overlayed with Wandjina. We also made a landing to visit a WWII aircraft wreck. The Kimberley coast has many site related to the war history as the Japanese invasion of Jave and Indonesia continued on to include attacks on both Broome and Darwin.Scenes from this period: Bigge Island Wandjina art site; Vansittart Bay C-53 (DC-3) wreck; Jar Island Gwion Gwion art site x 2; Swift Bay Wandjina art site x 2; Swift Bay Gwion Gwion art site x 2 with a person to show scale and our approach; Wollaston Island site showing overlapping Gwion Gwion and Wandjina art x 3; Cruising the King George River gorge
Continue to October
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