FALLS, FATIH & FARAWAY PLACES
Journey Beyond’s Horizontal Falls & Dampier Peninsula Tour offers a full day of natural and cultural immersion in some of the Kimberley’s most spectacular and spiritual settings.
WORDS Natasha Dragun
The sun in the Kimberley hits differently. The skies feel wider here, the air cleaner, the colours more intense, the wilderness, well, wilder. There’s a clarity to the landscape that feels almost dreamlike, as if the country is revealing itself in high definition. Through this vivid lens, the rays of the day penetrate deep into your soul – as does the scenery and stories this part of Western Australia holds.
Those same rich rays glint off the mother-of-pearl shell inlays adorning Beagle Bay’s (Ngariun Burr) Sacred Heart Church, casting pixie dust-like rainbows over the floor. This unassuming structure could be Australia’s most beautiful place of worship, its powder blue walls adorned with scalloped shell arches and an altar almost entirely shrouded with iridescent mother of pearl, cowrie, volute and olive snail shells.
It at once speaks of the region’s most lucrative industry – pearling quite literally put Broome (Rubibi) on the map – and the long and complicated relationship between Indigenous communities and colonists. That relationship is etched into every shell and stone, layered in beauty and pain alike.
Established as a mission by the Trappist order in 1890, Pallottine monks from Germany took on Beagle Bay in 1901. During World War I, the monks and local First Nations Nyul Nyul people worked together and built the church by hand.
Today, it stands in stark, whitewashed splendour amid a landscape of red pindan soils and boabs, bulbous trees with wiry branches reaching skyward. It’s a soul-stirring stop on Horizontal Falls Seaplane Adventures’ freshly revamped Horizontal Falls (Garaanngaddim) & Dampier Peninsula (Murujuga) tour, a full day of exploring this remote and ravishing landscape.
The Nyul Nyul people have lived in this harsh but postcard-perfect place for millennia. They knew it as Ngariun Burr – ‘surrounded by springs’ – long before it was given the name ‘Beagle Bay’ by Scottish explorer John Clements Wickham, after the ship he was captaining around the region.
The site was gradually developed into a mission for Aboriginal children, and today it’s a self-governing Indigenous community; the church remains an active place of pilgrimage. Visiting is a moving itinerary addition that turns a day of natural spectacle into something far richer: a journey that carves out space for stillness, story and connection. Departing from Broome in the early morning, the experience begins in the air. Aboard a seaplane, the Kimberley unfolds below in ribbons of ochre and aquamarine. Sandstone cliffs rise in folds, tidal flats stretch like brushstrokes, and islands of the Buccaneer Archipelago sit scattered like stepping stones across turquoise seas. It’s aerial poetry.
Touchdown is on the calm waters of Talbot Bay (Ganbadba), where waiting tenders are purpose-built to navigate one of the world’s most extraordinary marine features: the Horizontal Falls.
The sea seems to vanish and then come flooding back along this pocket of the Kimberley coast, with tides of more than 11 metres (the planet’s second highest) recorded here. Every morning, the tide squeezes through two gaps in the McLarty Range’s ridges, building up on one side of the narrow cliff passage, pushing through at speeds to create the appearance of a waterfall turned sideways.
Then, in the afternoon, it reverses, and the flow surges back out through the chasm. Experiencing the phenomenon first-hand is breathtaking. Passengers cheer as they sharein moments that blur the line between anticipation and wonder. From there, the pace shifts. Back in the bay’s calm waters, the tenders venture through the surrounding inlets and mangrove estuaries – places to keep watch for tawny nurse sharks and graceful sea eagles.
A guided marine encounter on the floating pontoon allows for closer inspection, with expert interpretation that balances education and respect. There’s time to swim or snorkel in the protected enclosure, or simply to sit and take in the salt air, the silence and the sensation of being suspended in one of Australia’s most remote and remarkable corners.
After breakfast on the pontoon, the seaplane lifts off once more, banking north toward the red-ribbed coastline of the Dampier Peninsula. Below, a scar of sienna cuts through the scrub – the runway at Lombadina (Lollmardinard). Set between bushland and beach, this is a place of deep cultural roots and everyday rhythm.
That grounding presence lingers at Cygnet Bay (Borrgoron), home to one of Australia’s oldest working pearl farms. Here, the Indian Ocean reappears on the horizon, its salty tang carrying tales of tides, divers, family legacies and sustainable aquaculture. Touring the hatchery, learning how each shell is seeded and nurtured, feels like an entrée to the next destination – the shimmer of pearling culture echoing the radiance of Beagle Bay.
At the Sacred Heart Church, the region’s glow takes on a spiritual form. Walking through the nave toward the altar with a local Indigenous guide reframes the day entirely – from the roar of the falls to the hush of this sacred space, moving you not just across country, but through culture, memory and meaning. In these transitions – from rush to stillness, salt to stone and shell – the Kimberley reveals its depth. A place of wild grandeur, but also as one of deeply lived and felt experience.
Back on the road returning to Broome, the mood shifts. Sunlight slants across the horizon, heads rest on seat cushions, and conversations quieten to a soft murmur.
The excitement has passed, but something deeper has settled in its place. To truly engage with a place like the Kimberley, you need moments to pause between moments of natural awe. It’s in these still interludes that meaning takes root – a sense that you’ve not just seen the Kimberley, but felt it, too.