Guardians of the Kimberley
An ancient marine environment is safeguarded for future generations. Here’s what makes the Kimberley so special. WORDS Shaney Hudson
As wild as it is beautiful and bewitching, the Kimberley coast is a marvel for visitors, a fascination for scientists, an oceanographic phenomenon, and now, thanks to the establishment of three new marine parks, a place that will be protected for future generations.
A NEW BEGINNING
The establishment of three new Kimberley region marine parks in 2023 has contributed to the protection of over 600,000 hectares of marine environment. This includes the creation of two new parks: the Bardi Jawi Gaarra Marine Park, which extends from the northern tip of the Dampier Peninsula (Bardi Jawi) and Western Islands of the Buccaneer Archipelago (Dambimangari); and the Mayala Marine Park, which covers the north-east of King Sound extending into the Buccaneer Archipelago. The new Maiyalam Marine Park has been amalgamated into the Lalang-garram Marine Park, which also consists of the North Lalang-garram Marine Park, Lalang-garram (Camden Sound) Marine Park and Lalang-garram (Horizontal Falls) Marine Park. These new parks serve as safeguards, ensuring the conservation of natural marine eco-systems, while also facilitating sustainable use for stakeholders such as tourists, recreational fishers, and local communities. They are also significant for its new management structure, with the West Australian government’s Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions jointly managing the parks with the traditional custodians of sea country: the Bardi Jawi, Mayala and Dambeemangarddee traditional owners.
DEEPER UNDERWATER
But just what makes the marine environment around the Kimberley coast so special? The Kimberley is classified as a macro-tidal coast, meaning it experiences a tidal range of greater than four metres. The famous, furious tides in this area can experience fluctuations of up to 11 metres, creating an aquatic push and pull that while appearing reasonably calm on the surface, underneath can produce churning currents of up to ten knots. The spectacular rise and fall of the ocean creates a series of tidal creeks, levees, whirlpools and phenomena that have made it an authentic bucket-list destination for many travellers.
MAKING A SPLASH
It’s a sight only eclipsed by the Kimberley’s most famous attraction: the incredible Horizontal Falls (Garaangaddim). A natural phenomenon found nowhere else in the world, the famous falls occur when the force of water purges through a narrow opening between two rust-red gorges in the McLarty Ranges. Thousands of gigalitres surge in and out through an opening just twelve metres across in parts, creating rapids that give the impression of a horizontal waterfall. But these are not the Kimberley’s only natural wonders. Named for the pirate that chartered the area on a stolen ship in the 1600s, the Buccaneer Archipelago consists of more than 1000 islands tossed like confetti across the water. The archipelago is part of a ria, a coastal inlet drowned at least 1800 million years ago by rising seas, and punctuated by long, linear rocky sandstone outcrops. The islands themselves are a collective of the weird and wonderful: rocky outcrops surrounded by silt; islands covered in thick spinifex grass, others dotted with eucalypts; some even with patches of rainforest. Their isolation is key in their pristine condition: the difficulty in accessing the area means visitors to this region are seeing a wilderness unblemished for thousands, if not hundreds-of-thousands of years. The tropical, monsoonal landscape creates a unique and diverse ecological environment. Lining the shorelines across the Dampier Peninsula and northern coast are over a dozen species of mangroves that provide a critical nursery for fish, and invertebrate, as well as a shadowy hiding place for estuarine crocodiles. Parts of the peninsula are also surrounded by a protective layer of saltmarsh which stores carbon and protects the area from flood and erosion. Fringing reefs of soft and hard coral have formed around many islands, while underwater meadows of seagrass sustain turtles and critical colonies of dugongs. Both populations thrive alongside 270 species of algae that clean and protect the pristine waterways. Here, the ocean’s tiniest aquatic beings share their habitat with the biggest. The shallow estuaries and embayments around Camden Sound (Lalang–garram) are a calving ground and aquatic nursery for one of the biggest populations of humpback whales in the world. They share the water with other cetaceans, including dolphins, pilot whales, pygmy killer whales and even the world’s biggest creature, the blue whale. It’s a marine environment like no other in the world, and with the establishment of new Marine Parks, one that is safeguarded for the future.
“It’s a marine environment like no other in the world, and with the establishment of new Marine Parks, one that is safeguarded for the future.”
THE DETAILS
TOUR Immerse yourself in the Kimberley with an overnight stay at the spectacular and remote Horizontal Falls. Flying in, visitors spend the night aboard the luxury floating vessel, the Jetwave Pearl, experiencing the falls during both high and low tide. Guests can swim and snorkel, take a guided fishing expedition and a scenic cruise through Talbot Bay (Garaangaddim) and Cyclone Creek, ending the day with sunset drinks among the isolated and beautiful red rock canyons.