The Kimberley, Part 3 – The Perks

As one of my friends said, academia doesn’t have many perks, but the fieldwork is definitely one of them.

I don’t really know where to start...

The Kimberley is amazing. Just amazing. Every sunrise, every sunset, and all the hours in between have been one incredible experience after another. I’ve only been back a couple of weeks and already it feels like some unbelievable dream. Being at sea is a bit surreal anyway. Add on being in the Kimberley and you’ve got yourself an once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The trip was focused around the islands in the north of Camden Sound,

Our stops

The Islands

The geology of the Kimberley is fascinating. Unfortunately I don’t know enough geology to explain it to you so I’m just going to show some pretty pictures.

One thing that really struck me was how skewed my perspective was. The lack of anything manmade to give a sense of scale meant that islands which looked really flat and unimpressive from not that far away… 

Pyrene Island, Vulcan Island and Jungulu Island

… turned out to have towering cliffs up close.

Vulcan Island with the tender for scale

 The Kimberley is famous for its red sedimentary rock and oh my goodness is it beautiful. It changes colour with the sunlight, going from almost a yellow when the light is dull to a beautiful glowing red, as if illuminated from within, at dawn and dusk. 

Photos really cannot do it justice.

There was some weird (to me) geology in places. I have no idea what is going on in these photos so if anyone knows please tell me in the comments! This is a beach that seems to be made up of boulders stuck together somehow,

Jungulu Island

While this seems to be some weird rockflow,

Pyrene Island

And I have no idea what this weird bulge is about,

Lilum Island

The Tides

The Tides in the Kimberley are, as I’ve already mentioned, huge. The marine regions of the Kimberley are flooded low-lying lands – much like the North Sea, both were exposed land during the last ice age and only became submerged when the ice melted. The islands are hills and plateaus that are high enough to poke above the sea but there are some which are high enough to poke out at low tide but get submerged at high tide. We’re not talking about small areas either, entire islands come and go with the tide. This is the Rainbow Shoals at low tide. We were a good few miles away from them but I promise you they are not visible at high tide. 

Rainbow Shoals

The wildlife

I was surprised by the lack of wildlife. I expected to be seeing seabirds everywhere but they were rare. I then realised I’d been somewhat spoilt by spending a couple of years on fishing boats which attract birds with their discards. However, this only served to make the encounters we did have all the more special.

I saw some terns, oystercatchers and brown boobies (Sula leucogaster),

Brown booby

I also got to see a few land birds, including what I think is a juvenile Black-faced cuckoo-shrike (Coracina novaehollandiae),

Juvenile black-faced cuckoo shrike (possibly)

and a silver-crowned friarbird (Philemon argenticeps),

Silver-crowned friarbird

I was surprised to find that our most common bird wasn’t a true seabird but was, in fact, the eastern osprey, Pandion haliaetus. These birds were nesting on many of the islands we visited but that didn’t stop seeing them from being an incredible sight. One on island we had the awesome privilege of seeing a juvenile and his mother flying around and into their nest. The nests are huge, and seemingly precariously positioned…

Osprey nest

(If you’re having trouble spotting it, near the middle at the top there’s two rocks sticking out – one to the left and one to the right. It’s on the one pointing to the right). We got to see one of the birds land in the nest,

Osprey landing in its nest

and then take off again,

Osprey leaving its nest

It was truly breathtaking.

In addition to the camera and video surveys of the reef we did some ‘biological sampling’ and I got to see some of the fish up close for the fist time.

This is a fingermark (Lutjanus johnii),

Fingermark

  This is a giant trevally, Caranx ignobilis (Becky took this photo as I was doing my own biological sampling at the time),

Giant trevally

This little beauty is a blackspot tuskfish (Coradon schoenelini),

Blackspot tuskfish

If you’re wondering why it’s called a tuskfish, a close-up may help,

Tusk of the Blackspot tuskfish

I finally got to come face-to-face with the species that I’ve been doing most of the otolith work on, the stripey snapper (Lutjanus carponotatus), It turns out they're a very pretty fish!

At last! The fish I've been studying for the last year!

Even line-fishing, er, biological sampling, isn’t without its bycatch. We kept catching little reef sharks like this one (being carefully unhooked by Pete),

Ankle-biter

The most exciting thing we got to see, however, was something that we’d been warned about but never really expected to see.

So, we’d done our survey work for the afternoon and went for a little explore around the island. I’d noticed there was an inlet so we went to take a look. We headed in past the small cliffs to the end where we found this little slice of heaven. There were birds in the trees and fish jumping in the mangroves. We cut the engine on the tender and enjoyed the tranquillity.

Mangroves on Byam Martin Island

We were slowly heading out when all of a sudden Marcus cries out…

‘Crocodile!!!’

And then we saw it,

Crocodile

It was quite small, maybe 1.5m long – a baby. But it was very intrigued by us and was clearly coming to take a look.

Getting closer...

It kept following us. Not rushing us, but getting slowly closer.

... and closer

I was shaking so much! It was incredible but also a bit scary, in part because the chances of there just being this small croc in such a prime location wasn’t very likely. Luckily we never saw any of his bigger mates. He followed us all the way out of the inlet.

(he’s that small blob in the water on the left about 2/3 of the way up the water)

Seeing the croc was definitely a highlight!

Bushfires

 Fire is an integral part of Australian ecology. Many of the plants have evolved to live with it, even require it. But it can be devastating if the fire burns too hot, so as much as possible controlled burns are done in the cooler months which lets animals to hide and avoid the heat and flames and plants to only lose dead material. We could see evidence of these controlled burns out entire trip, with the smoke forming the only stain in an otherwise cloudless sky,

Bushfire smoke

 As we got closer to the mainland the smoke became increasingly visible,

Bushfire smoke

and we could even see them burning at night,

Bushfires on the horizon

But it was when we reached Samson Inlet that we came face to face with them,

Bushfire at Battery Point

It was here that we got to experience something that few do, or at least while feeling as safe as we did. We were anchored off Wilson Point where a bushfire was raging right in front of us. It came over the hill towards the sea as we stood on the bow watching.

Bushfire at Wilson Point

We could see the flames from where we stood,

Bushfire

There were loads of whistling kites (Haliastur sphenurus) riding the bushfire thermals and searching for animals escaping the flames.

Whistling kites in the smoke

Whistling kite

The fire was spectacular. The smoke filled the sky directly in its path but to the left and right the sky was clear.

Bushfire

And then, surprisingly quickly, it was burned out and moved on along the coast. Apart from being blacker than before there was little sign there had ever been a fire – the sky was clear and many of the shrubs still had green on them.

After the bushfire

It was truly remarkable!

Sunrise, Sunset

It goes without saying that the sunrises and sunsets in the Kimberley were stunning. After the first day I saw every sunrise and sunset. They were all spectacular but I shall end with a few of my favourites.

Sunrise over Vulcan and Pyrene Islands,

Sunrise over Vulcan and Pyrene Islands

Sunrise over Byam Martin Island (the bushfire smoke really enhanced the sunrise),

Sunrise over Byam Martin Island

Sunrise over Byam Martin Island (close-up),

Sunrise over Byam Martin Island

Sunrise off Dampier Peninsula,

Sunrise off Dampier Peninsula

Sunset while steaming east of Jungulu Island,

Sunrise over Jungulu Island

But this is my absolute favourite photo. It was at the end of the day when we’d seen the crocodile. We were doing some biological sampling as the sun went down. The sampling was good, we were all enjoying being in this incredible place far away from cities and noise and traffic and people, taking pleasure in the small things and watching the sun set over the island as it has done for tens of thousands of years and will do so for thousands more. 

Sunset over Byam Martin Island

Thanks I would like to thank the crew of the RV Solander for having us on board and making us feel so welcome.

RV Solander

I also want to thank the Dambimangari Rangers for welcoming us into their country, and I especially want to thank Becky and Pete for making it such a fun time!

Me, Pete and Becky

But most of all I want to thank Andrew for inviting me on the trip. I cannot say thank you enough for giving me such an incredible opportunity!