Oz Circumnavigation

Kimberley Cowboys

Anyone who has seen Baz Lurnham's latest movie "Australia" will have witnessed Hugh Jackman, and Nicole Kidman as cowboys in the Kimberley region. We saw another type of cowboy that operates up here in the aviation field.

1. At Beagle Bay the whole area was surrounded by smoke from a controlled bush burning, when we spotted some isolated black smoke coming just inland from us. I thought this was strange as it could only come from some sort of petroleum product like fuel or say burning tyres. Not long after helicopters were hovering over the smoke and one landed out of our sight. When Rick and Tony returned from fishing in the inflatable they told us of an amphibian plane flying quite low overhead and so we guessed that it had crashed and caught on fire. This was confirmed next day on the internet, but fortunately no one was killed.

2. The float plane that brought Rick and Dianne into Talbot Bay was taking off with young Paul returning back to Broome, the take off was aborted just on lift off. Alongside the plane on take off was one of the falls boats with the two big 250 Yammies trying to outrun the planes speed in a race of sorts. We jumped in the dinghy and went over to the pontoon where the plane had returned to. Explanation - they had just realised that they didn't have enough fuel to get back to Broome.

3. We didn't witness this but we heard later that one of the float planes coming also into Talbot Bay full of sightseers flipped over when the pilot landed with his wheels still locked down.

We thought to ourselves that the best way to see the Kimberley was certainly on the good ship SKIE.