25 Aug 2023

Expedition Cruising to the Kimberley's Rock Art Galleries at Swift Bay

With strong winds thwarting this morning's Zodiac cruise our constant state of 'rigid flexibility', a necessity when expedition cruising, saw us instead enjoying an impromptu bird photography presentation by our on board photography guru Ewen Bell as Heritage Adventurer repositioned to a more sheltered spot in Swift Bay.

After lunch, and armed with some incredible insights and photography skills ready to put into practice, we piled into our Zodiacs and cruised along a mangrove channel to visit two different, but equally incredible, rock art galleries. The first site featured Wandjina-style, similar to what we saw on Bigge Island yesterday, although being from different areas they had their own unique style and included lots of animal drawings of crocodiles, turtles, fish and birds.

For the second site we repositioned our Zodiacs 100 metres to a sandy beach where, after a short climb to a rock overhang, we enjoyed intricate rock art  paintings in the Gwion Gwion style. Dating back to a minimum of 17,000 years, we were treated to fascinating evolution of this style over several eras which was proudly displayed on the rock surface. This gallery is also the site of a huge cave where we found a large cavern with rays of light shining through gaps in the sandstone, while further in we found several large spider webs and, at the very end, a beautiful female tarantula which sat quietly in wait.

The cool cave temperature also provided a respite from the Kimberley sun as we viewed the intricate rock art. Zodiac cruising back to our trusty expedition ship the temperature began to drop cueing a dusk chorus from the many birds in the sweetly scented mangroves.

Image (c) by: T.Todd