Kimberley Trip, Day 13: Bigge Island

Tuesday, June 4, 2024

Bigge Island (pronounced “biggie”) is named for someone named Bigge although the island is big. It is the home for some more Gwion Gwion (ancient) and Wandjina (newer) rock art. Starting from the beach where we landed, we took a short hike to the art sites, with narration by our guides, particularly our indigenous guide, Goyma. I practiced some of the photography skills taught by our photo experts at some lectures earlier in the trip, with some success.

After lunch (and some repositioning of the Orion), we landed at a different beach with a few boab trees. This included a huge and notable tree called the Mermaid Tree, around which a low platform had been built to protect its roots, much as has been done around some giant sequoia trees in California.

We then walked further along the trail to where a couple of “parade grounds” built by bower birds were located. The bower bird is very plain-looking, so to impress a potential mate, it creates a straw tunnel and decorates its approach with local materials. These aren’t nests, just ways to attract a mate.

Returning to the ship, we found menus tucked into four doors across the hall, indicating additional COVID cases had been found. Dinner was moved outside to the aft deck, which was very comfortable and pleasant, but a lot of work for the staff since the galley is downstairs, necessitating a lot of shuttling back and forth.

This article is part of a series about our recent trip to Indonesia and Australia. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.