Lonely coral beaches, turquoise-blue tropical water, red rock, waterfalls and secluded expanses: the buccaneer archipelago north of Derby is made for a Robinsonade! The landscape has a marbled effect: turquoise, deep blue, green, white and yellow - the Kimberley coast is constantly reinventing itself in the play of the tides. Then the Buccaneer Archipelago appears on the horizon. Buccaneer Archipelago ... even the name makes you dream. Mostly small, rocky and sparsely vegetated islets, its 800 to 1000 islands lie east of Cape Leveque to Collier Bay off the north coast of Western Australia. Seagrass beds and coral reefs surround them, mangroves sometimes line their shores and, rarely, rainforest.
They owe their name to the Englishman William Dampier, who discovered the archipelago on 15 January 1688. 200 years later, the islands became famous for pearl fishing, and pearl farming is still practised in a few bays to this day. Rich iron ore deposits were discovered at the beginning of the 20th century. BHP still extracts it from the mines on Koolan Island and Cockatoo Island. Nevertheless, the islands are still so remote that they provided the perfect backdrop for Tim Winton's great novel Dirt Music.
Hello and welcome! Here are the best photos I've ever taken: Hilke - a true Hamburg girl with a lot of France in her heart. I trained as an editor and, after two decades with various publishing houses, I've been working as a freelance journalist for print, .. Read more…