Arrive in Darwin and enjoy an afternoon at leisure. Gather this evening for a welcome dinner and overnight at your hotel.

Today explore Darwin—a popular holiday destination graced with beautiful beaches and a laid-back atmosphere. Join a city tour to discover innovative museums and browse galleries that showcase the region’s rich indigenous art. This afternoon board the Coral Discoverer and set sail.

Permission pending, go ashore on the Tiwis and join local Aboriginal guides for a tour of the small community of Nguiu, its museum, and the old Mission Precinct. You also have an opportunity to visit the local arts center and to view and purchase high-quality Tiwi crafts, as well as screen-printed fabric. 

Cruise through a spectacular canyon where vertical cliffs, gorges, and mangroves line the shores of the mighty King George River. The final destination is King George Falls, a supremely photogenic area of 325-foot cliffs of rust-colored sandstone rising from the tidal waters.

View fine examples of ancient Bradshaw or Gwion Gwion art, thought to be 20,000 to 15,000 years old, on Jar Island. The Anjo Peninsula was the site of several significant air accidents during World War II and you can still see the wreck of a C-53 Skytrooper that crash landed on a salt flat in 1942. Tides permitting, step ashore on Woku-Woku Island to search for the remnants of old Macassan trepang stoves that were used to boil sea cucumbers collected on their journeys through the Kimberley hundreds of years ago.

A unique experience awaits you on Bigge Island, sacred to Aborigines for thousands of years. Well-preserved Aboriginal paintings grace the walls of caves, depicting mythical figures and offering visual evidence of the European entrance into the Aboriginal way of life. Monjon (the smallest of the wallabies), are numerous on this island and can often be seen sprinting from one rock ledge to another. In the afternoon step ashore Sterna Island to search for a variety of seabirds, including four species of terns, pied cormorants, white-bellied sea eagles, and osprey. 

From Hunter River, fly via helicopter to the Mitchell Plateau to visit Mitchell Falls, a series of waterfalls and pools culminating in a deep gorge carving its way through the Outback. Explore the surrounding area on foot and enjoy a refreshing swim in the rushing freshwater pools. In the vicinity of your anchorage, you may explore the small tributaries by Zodiac, searching the mangroves and tidal mud flats for crocodiles, mud skippers, and fiddler crabs, as well as the many bird species that make their home within the dense vegetation.

The Buccaneer Archipelago consists of more than 800 islands. The shorelines of these rarely visited isles are among the most photogenic in the world, and include mangrove estuaries, secluded bays, untouched beaches, cliffs, headlands, reefs, rugged gorges, and whirlpools. This area is known for its extreme tidal conditions—ranging up to 30 feet in places. Your daily activities are planned around the tides—a way of life in the Kimberley. At Raft Point, join a bush walk to learn the traditions of the Worrorra people and view ancient Aboriginal cave paintings of outstanding quality, depicting the significance of the marine world to the Aboriginal way of life. At Montgomery Reef, view the amazing array of marine life exposed at low tide. The reef is home to an incredible number of green sea turtles and sharks are sometimes spotted in the surrounding waters. At Talbot Bay visit the Horizontal Waterfalls, one of the most unusual regional attractions. The falls, created by a phenomenon resulting from the mammoth tides, actually reverse as the tide turns.

The Lacepede Islands are a group of four low, sandy islands lying on a coral reef. The islands are an important nesting site for green sea turtles and several species of seabirds including frigatebirds, brown boobies, crested terns, sandpipers, and ruddy turnstones. Join naturalists on nature walks along the long, white-sand beaches. Be on deck this evening as the sun sets and the night sky comes alive—far from the city lights, stargazing in the Kimberley is simply spectacular.

Disembark in Broome with time for a bit of sightseeing. Transfer to the airport for your independent flight to Sydney with dinner and overnight at the Rydges Sydney Airport Hotel. Board your independent flight the next day.