Ted Talks: Australia’s Kimberley Coast, The Remotest of the Remote

An account from our partners at QuirkyCruise.com

By Ted Scull – full article: https://quirkycruise.com/australias-kimberley-coast-the-remotest-of-the-remote/

The travel bug sends all manner of people to all corners of the globe by sea in small, medium-size and humongous ships, via aircraft ranging from a Piper Cub to the airbus 380, in cars, on trains, buses, two wheels and two feet. Is there anywhere left to go that I won’t have to share the experience with so many people who are already there?

Looking back to an earlier era, I am old enough to recall our guide taking the three of us — my mother, brother and myself — into the Sistine Chapel and suggesting that we lay down on a carpet and look up at the ceiling while she related the story of Michelangelo’s illustrating the book of Genesis. One would be trampled today and maybe arrested.

Two years later, after a stint working at a bush hospital in then Tanganyika, I found myself in a Land Rover with two other people driving across the Serengeti Plain. We came into contact with a pride of lions with not another soul around. Then an hour later, stopping and turning off the motor, as a huge herd of wildebeest flowed by en route to a distant waterhole.

Now, I try to stay away from the summer crowds in Europe and certain port cities that have become inundated with humanity, many off giant cruise ships.

As I am writing this, I can still clearly recall sitting in a tour bus at a beauty spot on the island of Rhodes, surrounded by other buses, all unable to move. The cacophony of blaring horns did not produce a single inch of progress forward. Sitting there for an hour or so, and unknown to us, two buses had sideswiped each other, and the investigation halted the one route out of the quagmire.

So where have I found serenity ashore?

I will start with the most extreme example, simply because the experience was so utterly wonderful lasting over a week. Others will follow.

The ship was the Orion, now belonging to Lindblad Expeditions, and the destination was the Kimberley Coast. We embarked on a 10-night voyage from Darwin, Australia’s Northern Territory capital, and headed westward, making daily coastal stops en route to Broome in Western Australia.

We were less than 100 passengers, nearly all Australians, including my Aussie-born wife, plus a couple of Brits, a NZ couple, and one Yank (me!).

continued at QuirkyCruise.com