Cruisin’ the Kimberley

(P) Over the years we have been fortunate to travel a considerable amount. Experience has told us that the best planning is to “frame” out a basic trip and then just go with the “flow”. This year’s Western Australia road trip being no exception. With minimal forward bookings it gives us the opportunity to explore areas without being tied to a schedule, dictated by bad weather etc. Despite reading and hearing on the “travellers grapevine” how busy the camps are, we have not been prevented from staying anywhere we wished to.

Judith was browsing thru Facebook a few days back and saw a comment that some of the Kimberley Cruise companies were cancelling cruises due to Covid-19 state border lockdowns. Further investigations revealed some serious discounts were being offered to fill cabins. After a little more (like 10 minutes) research we booked ourselves on a 12 day Cruise departing Derby on the 8th August. Always eager for a bargain deal, the considerable discounts we received to fill a cabin was almost too good to be true. (I had visions of me scrubbing decks and doing dishes for 12 days to balance out the fare payment!)

As we were cast afloat departing Derby (it must be mentioned I had to sacrifice one day of the 2 day Derby Rodeo (an awesome local event) to board “Discovery One”.

Discovery One is a grand old Catamaran that started her life as a Sydney Harbour Cruise Boat, then a Whale Watcher off Harvey Bay, Queensland, before being refitted as a Kimberley Cruiser.

She is very well fitted out and carries an experienced crew of 6 for the maximum 22 passengers. The 3 most important crew (Captain Lennie for 17 years ) and hostesses Melissa and Sarah, have been on board for many cruise seasons. Equipped with 2 well powered tenders we were treated to 29 shore excursions during the cruise.

The scenery and shore excursions were awesome, everyone was friendly and fortunately there was an abundance of food ( I have been able to avoid those salad options!) A few nice compliments from me has worked wonders with our Hostesses Sarah and Melissa delivering my daily Latte requirements on time without needing to order!! As we have seen so many awesome places we will let the photos do the “talking” over the next few blogs.

More to come over the next few days as we sort and collate photos.