That would be Gantheaume Point which is 6Km from Broome’s town centre. To get the most out of a visit you need a sunny day and a very low tide. The sunny day means that the incredible red rocks are sharply contrasted with the blue sky and aquamarine sea. It is quite stunning. The very low tide means that dinosaur footprints from the Early Cretaceous can be seen. When we visited we had the sunny day, but, the tide was well and truly in.

 

As I said previously we were visiting at the tail end of the wet season – think tropical storms that dump an incredible amount of water. So as we drove the final leg down to the car park along a dirt road we encountered some huge puddles. Like really big – so big that one of them had waves created by the off shore wind. At the car park we were met by a sign warning us of the dangers that were present. I could understand the one about unstable cliffs that could collapse, the one about deep holes that the unwary could fall into, but the one warning about the giant rubber ducks that pushed people off the cliffs was a bit of a mystery. Thankfully while we were there we did not see the rubber ducks and so felt quite safe.

 

Walking from the car park you see the old lighthouse keeper’s house and the lighthouse itself. About halfway up the lighthouse we could see the massive pile of sticks that is an Eastern Osprey’s nest and below that was an Osprey chowing down on a big fish. Now the Eastern Osprey is quite a big bird of prey, but every couple of minutes it paused eating to scan the environment for threats. Birds such as Australian Ravens and Masked Lapwings will attack them and drive them off, but it was also probably keeping an eye open for other birds of prey that would try and steal the fish.

 

According to the Indigenous Yawuru people the wet season, Man-gala, draws to a close and the next season, Marrul, starts and one of the markers for that change are the appearance of dragonflies. Thousands upon thousands of them. They were everywhere we went. I’ve never seen so many it was absolutely incredible. Gantheaume Point was no exception, heaps of them everywhere. A lot of smaller birds of prey feed on the large insects and there were a couple of Australian Hobby, which are a variety of small falcon, doing precisely that. They put on an incredibly acrobatic display darting in and out of the rocks chasing down their prey. They didn’t even bother to land when they caught one preferring to eat it in flight. It was simply sublime watching them.

 

By now we were absolutely drenched in sweat. The temperature and the humidity had taken its toll so we headed back to the car looking forward to the relief provided by air conditioning.