This is a two day entry as we took a tour with 6 other travellers and our guide to the Dampier Peninsular.

On Tuesday we were picked up at 6.50 by Brenton in a 13 seater 4WD. Well 13 if no luggage, however with backpacks chucked around in the back section of the cabin, we were lucky not to be more than 6 travellers. Just up the road from our hotel we turned onto a red dirt road that for 90km rattled almost every nut, bolt, screw and filling loose. That's not to mention the need to have the seatbelt so tightly adjusted so that we weren't launched into the ceiling. It was like driving over corrugated iron and then every now and then launched out of our seats as we left the ground over humps in the road. Ches also likened it to driving in Naples. Brenton drove all over the road, including on the right hand side halfway up the embankment. The road in sections is so deep that I figured that another 100 years will have it the depth of the Grand Canyon.

The red dirt road ends at Beagle Bay where we stopped for morning tea. This aboriginal community has a population of 400, however quite a few are away during the week working in Broome. It has a school and well maintained homes and a stunning white church.

The community was established by Trappist monks
around 1890. Beagle Bay has a history of caring for stolen children. In 1884, the first ever priest arrived to serve the
Catholics in the Kimberley to try and convert the Aboriginal people. Bishop
Matthew Gibney founded the Beagle Bay mission, developed in the land of the
Nyul Nyul people; this became a site for the Aboriginal people in 1890. The
first Catholic School was established by the Trappist Fathers at Beagle Bay in
1892. In 1895, the Trappist monks of Sept-Fons in France, extend their missionary work from Beagle Bay to
Broome. In 1901, Pallottine Fathers
from Germany took over Beagle Bay Mission with two priests and four brothers.
In 1907, the St John of God Sisters began to run a mission school at Beagle Bay
and in 1918 the famous church was opened. It
features a pearl shell altar which is now a tourist attraction. The Beagle Bay
Mission subsequently became home to Indigenous people from across the Kimberley
and further afield.
It was another 130km on from here to Ardyaloon or "One Arm Point", however all on paved roads. During the wet, all communities north of the red dirt road can access each other on bitumen roads ,however they are cut off from Broome.

Where to start describing this amazing place? Leaving the made road briefly, we drove a dirt road with the raging tidal race off to our right and the first of the more than 1,000 islands of the Buccaneer Archipelago in King Sound no more than 3 or 400 meters off shore. The tides are the 2nd highest in the world, reaching up to 11.8 metres and even the lower ones are fast running. Because the tide has to push the water in and out around the 1,000 islands, they are so fast they generate whirl pools in and around all the islands. We missed the highest tides, so didn't see the islands completely submerged and therefore the waterfall effect when the tide drops and the water drains off the islands.

We drove out to the point where the local Bardi people (350 or so) have established a hatchery, restocking the reefs with Trochus shell and breeding fish. They harvest the mature shell and create jewellery etc. We had an excellent tour of around ten tanks and then drove back along the beach to have lunch with Kevin and Donna Ejai and their children and Kevin's elderly mother.

Kevin talked about growing up here and rafting out to his island between tides. Donna about rehabilitating people of the stolen generation and offering them the opportunity to develop a connection to "Country". Lotsa stuff to write about later when I have more time.

We drove on to Cygnet bay and took a boat trip among the islands before dropping us off on a beach where we made camp for the night.

Traditional Owner, Kevin Ejai, was raised on
Jackson Island just off the coast of One Arm Point on the Dampier Peninsula.
Kevin and his partner Donna Edgar have long held ambitions to operate a tourism
business on Jackson Island and with the support of Morrgul are now in the early
stages of negotiating a Joint Venture partnership with Kimberley Wild
Expeditions to setup a semi-permanent eco camp on a small parcel of land on the
Island. All going well, Kevin’s island enterprise will be operational in 2015.
Morrgul is helping Donna and Kevin navigate through the various steps in the
land assembly process of Aboriginal Lands Trust, the Kimberley Land Council,
the Bardi Jawi Prescribed Body Corporate and the Department of Lands.

In the meantime,
Morrgul has supported Kevin and Donna to start a small cultural tour business
at One Arm Point, guiding boaties around the swirling currents of the
Archipelago whilst providing cultural history and tales of Kevin’s upbringing
on the Islands.


Kevin and Donna are still working toward setting up the camp on his island. In the meantime, they have a palm frond shelter built above the beach near the hatchery and joined us for lunch. We shared our food and they cooked damper and chatted to us about their life and local culture