Day 48. Ross and I were off to the beach one hour before high tide to go fishing. Today the huge tide came up at 11.00am, we estimate at least 8 metres! We staked our spot on the beach and gradually the beach filled in either direction with other fishermen and 4WD vehicles for as far as our eyes could see. So unusual! We watched east and west down the beach but nothing was being caught by all these fishermen except two small black tipped reef sharks next to us. ...

Day 47. Up early today as we are travelling south west to Eighty Mile Beach. Refuelled at Sandfire Road House on the edge of The Great Sandy Desert which we have been tracking all morning. Big mobs of cattle at the roadside waterholes. Arrived into Eighty Mile Beach CP around noon and met up with our friends Ross and Robyn from Canberra who are next to us on a grassy unpowered site for the next couple of days. After lunch straight down to the beach for a swim, b...

Day 46. A visit to the Pearl Luggers Museum in the old town. The presentation on the history of pearling and the very dangerous job of the early pearl divers fascinating. From the 1850's the lugger masters used 'blackbirding' for collecting pearl shell, then from 1880 to 1973 Japanese divers dressed in extremely heavy dive suits with Malay tenders for collecting mother of pearl and natural pearls. Huge fortunes were made from pearling, mainly by the lugger maste...

Day 45. We rose early to catch our mini-bus to Broome Airport as our Horizontal Falls Seaplanes Adventure departed at 6.00am. Ben was our young pilot and we took off for the 250km trip north towards the red and yellow escarpments of the West Kimberley to land on the calm waters of Talbot Bay right next to the Horizontal Waterfall. We then boarded a 900hp fast boat 'Jet Stream' for a cruise into very protected Cyclone Creek and then into the fast flowing tidal Ho...

Day 44. Today we are visiting the Willie Creek Pearl Farm. We drove 30km up the Cape Leveque Road including a section of red bull dust road and across the sandy white mudflats to the farm. A very informative presentation on how pearls are cultured and harvested, then a short boat ride on blue azure waters of the estuary to see the racks of pearls attached to longlines. A large male crocodile cruising the water. A large lustrous South Seas pearl will take 2 years...