Cape Leveque

Sun 10 May….. Up bright and early to catch our 4WD bus to go to Cape Leveque. There are 12 of us on a 21 seater so it’s not crowded. Not much to look at as we clear Broome and head north. After about half an hour we run out of road and hit the red 4WD track a real bone shaker. It is definitely the roughest track we have been on, even with state of the art suspension it still rattles your teeth. It seems fun for the first 10 minutes then the novelty wears off and after one and a half hours I’m starting to feel a bit queasy! We stop at Beagle Bay Aboriginal Community for morning tea and to look at their church. It is very well maintained (and morning service is just finishing when we arrive) the main feature is the decoration around the altar and the stations of the cross with mother of pearl and shells. Unusual and beautiful. The community seems to be well tended, obviously no grog here and there was a sign “winner in tidy Village competition 2008. Along the track a bit further which is like a corrugated, concave channel until we reach one arm point where we can see the nearest islands of the Buccaneer Archipelago. It has terrific tidal flows and they say that if they could harness the power of the flow it would supply all of Australia’s grid! No place for scuba! There is a type of fish farm here which breeds and supplies fish for tropical aquariums, plus a scheme for restocking the reef. It was really interesting seeing fish such as the huge Barramundi down to the aggressive little anemone fish (Nemos!) which we have seen many times when diving. On to Cape Leveque as beautiful a place as we have seen. We have lunch in a purpose built sun shelter, though the fronds needed replacing. There are several of them dotted about around the beach and free for anyone to use. After lunch, prepared by our driver, it’s on with the budgies, mask and snorkel and into the surf. It’s not ideal for snorkelling, as there is a heavy swell and a danger of being bashed into the rocks. We stick to the sandy bits, but the vis is not too good though we did spot a few nice fish. A couple of hours later and we set off back to Broome. It’s a very long way to go for such a short stay but we thought it was well worth it. At last we have seen some of the Kimberly, but only scratched the surface we could spend months exploring the area and still not see it all. The only way it is possible to see it all is by air as some of the places are inaccessible even to 4WD vehicles. On the way back we called in at another Aboriginal Community, Lombadina. Their church had originally been built with mangrove roots and a paper bark roof. It was a bit rickety! Another tidy village though. Back in Broome by 6 30 after a wonderful day.