See the sea.
Feel the land.
There are many ways to cross a country. But few open it up and slow you down quite like this journey by land and sea.
WORDS Brook Turner
The vast tides that rule the Kimberley have been described as its beating heart. And by the time we arrive at Broome (Rubibi) Port in the early evening, the tide is well and truly in. On the rocks of Roebuck Bay (Yawuru Nagulagun), a pelican folds itself up like a penknife as the sun sets. A few metres on, a stingray undulates gently below the surface while a pair of sea turtles ‘periscope’ their heads and necks above the water to watch the passing bus.
As we reach the middle of the jetty, I glance down – into the golden eyes of an Osprey a couple of metres away, staring up from its giant nest, complete with two startled chicks. Crossing the 500-metre jetty to French cruise line Ponant’s Le Jacques Cartier, we’ve managed the kind of encounters usually only possible at a wildlife park. And we haven’t even reached the ship.
I have to admit I’ve been stalking the Kimberley for more than a decade, as it has gone from a blank at the top-left corner of the map to an Australian bucket-list item alongside the Galápagos Islands and Antarctica. Our 15-night journey along the coast will take us from Broome to Darwin (Garramilla), before joining the legendary Ghan to travel through Katherine, Alice Springs (Mparntwe), Coober Pedy (Umoona) and the vast, empty spaces between.
Expectations for this trip of a lifetime are sky-high. Particularly as I’m travelling with my partner and mother, a travel-industry veteran with a similar hankering to see Australia up close. And from the get-go, settling into our cabin on board the sleek, elegant Cartier as the sunset intensifies, it doesn’t disappoint.
Each of the days that follow brings something unforgettable. At the Lacepede Islands the next afternoon, it’s the sea turtles, surfacing like a giant game of Whac-A-Mole as a hefty saltie stalks our zodiac. On day three, it’s Ngalangie (a.k.a. Montgomery Reef) – at 400 square kilometres, the world’s largest inshore reef – which appears to rise from the ocean as up-to-eight-metre tides expose it. The day also brings the Horizontal Falls (Garaanngaddim), which none other than David Attenborough has declared one of the world’s “greatest natural wonders.”
Even they are eclipsed, however, by the zodiac trip that takes us to them. Cyclone Creek marks the point where, somewhere north of 1.8 billion years ago, the Kimberley Craton (a slice of ancient rock from the continental crust) smashed into – and over – the Australian continent. Evidence of one of pre-history’s great slow-motion collisions is everywhere: layers of the Craton lie pancaked over the ancient Pilbara sandstone, like cars in a roller derby. Ruffles of black stone billow along the waterline where they’ve squeezed out, like paint from a tube.
Nor do the wonders stop at Cyclone Creek. The three-hour zodiac trip along King George River (Manungku) on the last day, from its vast mangrove forests to its 80-metre rust-coloured cliffs, provides the cruise’s final surprise when our zodiac driver baptises us, Kimberley style, under the River’s famous twin falls (Oomari). The end of the wet season stuns with dragonflies and butterflies as abundant as the grasses that will soon fade as the dry season progresses.
Back on board, the Cartier’s bars and restaurants become venues for discussing the day’s activities. Whether among ourselves or our 120 fellow guests, the word ‘privilege’ keeps coming up.
Not only the privilege of the luxury ship, though it is remarkable, but also that of experiencing this ancient coast from the water. At night, we sleep with the doors open, breathing in the booming sea beyond the balcony. The ship’s lights illuminate the waters, showing reef sharks wriggling like commas as they glide just beneath the surface.
As we cross the Timor Sea to Darwin on the last day, the ship begins to rise and fall. There’s a rhythm to expedition cruising – fluid, expansive, elemental – that makes the shift as we board The Ghan a day later striking. Where the sea rocks you, the train grounds you, bringing a different kind of intimacy to the vastness of inland Australia.
Those who know the train best – its crew – talk about the peculiar magic its rhythm works while the landscape shifts at your window as you travel the 3,000 kilometres to Adelaide (Tarntanya). Without internet, TV or mobile coverage, it’s an entirely analogue experience. As one manager on The Ghan explains:
“You can sit and watch the country go by, but it’s a train, you have to be with people at meals and on Off Train Experiences, as people relax into the clickety-clack, they start opening up and having these great conversations.”
Each morning starts with the first glimpse out the cabin window, your own personal screen onto central Australia, usually at dawn and from your bunk. As luxuries go, waking into that red glow, the only people for miles, must rate toward the top of any list. As does watching it intensify, then fade into another perfect day over a leisurely breakfast in the restaurant car, as mobs of roos and emus flee the train. From the train we scatter each day to our chosen Off Train Experiences. Each, again, is memorable. And each, like the changes at the window, fuels the particular energy that reigns over drinks and meals as people regroup, share and compare.
On the first afternoon, we visit Nitmiluk, or Katherine Gorge, which manages to conjure the majesty of King George River in a short and remarkable burst. The next day, it’s Alice Springs Desert Park, another of Attenborough’s favourites, which again manages to transcend the hype.
The nocturnal house is a vision of the desert at night, from impossibly cute bilbies to to aptly named Thorny Devils which, hypnotic as a box of tiny, fluorescent gremlins, cause a traffic jam at the lit entrance. Moving between outdoor aviaries, we run into Jordi Little, the park’s wildlife whisperer, a dingo lolling in his arms like a giant bear. “I had to be somewhere and you can’t make a dingo do anything he doesn’t want to,” he says, by way of explaining how he came to be carrying a wild dog.
It becomes clear just how much Jordi can do with wildlife that afternoon, as he summons everything from barn owls to wedge-tails to the park’s open-air nature theatre, surrounded by the rocky outcrops of the West MacDonnell Ranges (Tjoritja), like a giant Albert Namatjira painting.
The line between nature and art narrows further the next morning as we drive into the glorious Painted Desert outside Cooper Pedy. Once a vast inland sea, it’s instantly familiar in a way that’s hard to pin down, until you realise that films including Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome and Pitch Black were shot here. Back on board, over drinks, or the Outback Explorer Lounge’s excellent barista coffee, the day’s experiences are once more unpacked, crystallised in conversation.
As we’ve travelled south, the landscape has become less empty and more populated, from the Arrernte traditional owners who guide us through Standley Chasm (Angkerle Atwatye), setting an ear to a tree to hear the sap beating inside, to Coober Pedy’s prospectors, the diggers behind its landscape of termite mounds.
But even as the trip nears its end, what lingers is the landscape. The revelation of Central Australia, like the Kimberley’s before it, turns out to be time, the vast scale captured in its geology and geography. That time, and the time we have just spent experiencing it.
THE DETAILS
TOUR
Experience two of Australia’s most iconic landscapes – the Kimberley coast and the Red Centre – in one seamless journey. The Coastal Quest 2026 pairs a luxury expedition cruise with PONANT from Broome to Darwin with a journey on board The Ghan to Adelaide. It’s the best of sea and rail: remote wilderness, cultural connection and the freedom to slow down. Departing May to August 2026, prices start from $17,495 per person.