Berkeley River Last Creek

Of all the creeks that run into the Berkeley River, we liked this last creek the best.

It is late in the dry season now, but we still found a trickle of clean fresh water running down out of the springs and through cascades between the rock pools.

The cascades and pools, and the rocky sandstone cliffs along the shore create the most idyllic garden atmosphere. As a landscape gardener, nature here has surpassed anything I have ever seen.

We spent hours here, just sitting and contemplating about the water and food around us, and thought of the others have sat and done the same in this location over the past tens of thousands of years.

WIth a waterfall separating this creek from the main body of the river, it is safe to swim in the lagoons here. After a cooling washout, we returned down the cliffs that keep the crocodiles out of the creek, and clambered back into our dinghy for the ride back down the upper gorge to the yacht at anchor back at the amphitheatre, a mile or so distant.

On our way into the creek, we saw a large crocodile in the reach of the river that the creek empties in to. I seems that this might be its home range, so we had a sharp lookout. It was significantly bigger than our little boat, so we travelled back nervously, on a slow plane, both to save fuel and to keep a sharp eye out for random rocks as the tide was quite low. The high tide line along the rocks of the shoreline was several metres off the water, so we were being cautious as rocks have been reported in the main stream along here.

The last creek runs into the river a mile or so upstream of the amphitheatre anchorage, further up the narrow gorge, but the river bed along here is scoured by wet season currents and offers no holding for our anchor.

The Berkeley River has been a highlight of our trip to the Kimberley, and this last creek was one of the highlights of the river.

From the Amphitheatre, we motored back down the gorge to Casuarina Creek to fill our water containers, before descending to the bottom of the river, where we had an afternoon walk along the beach to the north-west of the river. After an early morning exit on the high tide, and an overnight stop at Seaplane Bay, it was on to Koolama Bay.