Flight Club – Scoop Traveller Magazine, August 2009
Excerpt from Scoop Traveller June 2009.
David Hogan and his wife Marina spent five days touring the Kimberley by helicopter, covering some of Australia’s most spectactular landscapes, unique coastal camps and distinctive rock art of the pre-Aboriginal inhabitants of Australia’s North West.
THE KIMBERLEY remains one of the world’s most inaccessible and isolated destinations. It is a land of extremes. While difficult to appreciate from the ground, a helicopter is the ideal way to appreciate the sheer scale and stunning beauty of this fascinating region.
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We started our trip in Broome and rather than staying in town, we flew just two minutes north to Coconut Well and spent our first night at the very new Amsara.
Arriving that afternoon, we soon found ourselves in the pool, gin in hand, overlooking the magnificent Cable Beach.
Despite being just out of town, one of the advantages of this location is its relative isolation.
We took an hour-long morning drive in the Amsara 4WD 10km along Cable Beach and saw no one. Perched up high and 500m back from the beach, Amsara allows you to enjoy the sweeping ocean views from either the pool or shaded garden without fear of mozzies and with a surprising lack of bugs.
Amsara offers complete privacy – there are only two apartments – and is a lovely alternative to the resort options in town, but its proximity to Broome also means that even a one-night stay (like we enjoyed) is well worth the visit.
The apartments are sleek and open with all the amenities you would expect. However, what makes this place stand out is the homemade produce and cooking. From breakfast in the garden to a magnificent rack of lamb for dinner, owners Don and Jan Hodgson ensure a stay at their establishment is a culinary delight. We set off from Amsara at 9am, taking about an hour to run up the coast to Cape Leveque, enjoying the wonderful contrast between white sand beaches and deep red mini (three to four metre-high) cliffs.
From there we headed east across the incredible surging tides of the Buccaneer Archipelago, getting a birds-eye view of the distinctive “Kimberley curtain” – the black indicating the high tide mark.
After refuelling at Koolan Island, we flew several times over the Horizontal Falls in Talbot Bay, probably the region’s best-known natural attraction. This natural wonder sits in a narrow gap in the rocks between a massive inlet and the rising and falling sea level, creating a natural waterfall.
As we were visiting at the end of the Wet season, we also took in the magical King Cascades on Prince Regent River and flew over a campsite we had landed on two years previously to see our pile of wood still untouched, an indication of how isolated this region is.
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