Guluwuru Island (Wessel Island Chain)

[Kyle]Guluwuru is Aboriginal land. It is not permitted to go ashore without obtaining a permit first. We tried this, but the link on their website seems to be broken, so we never managed it. Fortunately, the prohibition only applies to the land above the highest tide line. The land and the water between the lowest tide line and the highest tide line also belongs to the Aboriginals, but through an agreement between the Aboriginal Land Council and the Australian government, all of this coastal band of Guluwuru and neighboring Marchinbar Islands (Marchinbar is the island north of Cumberland Strait) have been given a waiver from the permit requirement (at least through to December 2020). Thus, it was acceptable for us to go ashore as long as we kept below the highest tide line. Fortunately, the tidal range here is almost four meters. That exposes a pretty big swath of land at low tide. In reality, most of the land above the high tide line where we were anchored was thick with brambly undergrowth and wouldn't have been very explorer-friendly anyway. We were happy to stick to the beach.

just before the next day's low tide, we rowed ashore to the middle of the big beach. It was nice. It was a beach. The sand was nice and hard and ours were the only human footprints. (Guluwuru has no permanent inhabitants, although there may be seasonal camps). We started off by walking south to the gap between the beach and the breakwater island. At low tide, it was connected by a sand-spit, so we wanted to get across and back before the tide came back up.

The rocks exposed at low tide were so much fun to adventure among - so many stunning views

As we neared the end of the beach, the sand gradually gave way to rock and things got way more interesting. The rock was mostly big slabs made of innumerable thin layers. Erosion had undercut them, turning them into overhangs and precariously balanced table tops. Weaker cracks had also worn into chasms and grottoes. Some of the slabs had then fallen over, making windows and passages at crazy angles. In between were seams of bauxite, which had formed into dark red bubbles when it cooled. There were also plates of white sandstone, which had seams of pink and purple pastels, left either by minerals or possibly algae. We poked around for over an hour, marveling at the amazing sculpture garden around us. It's funny how entertaining looking at a bunch of rocks can be.

A lot of those slabs would have made a perfect place for a crocodile to warm up in the sun. We were keeping our eyes peeled and were each carrying a big stick just in case. We never found any, but we did find some tracks from a smaller one. The tracks were heading into the water. That was a reminder to keep back from the edge. We followed the tracks backwards and found that they terminated in a little sandy spot under a ledge, as if the creature was trying to hide from the sun. The hidey-hole and the tracks were oriented in such a way that if we had been going the other way, we wouldn't have seen them before we were right on top of them. Good thing the crocodile was gone. Now we not only had to worry about sun lounges, but also every private, shady nook, too.

After having our fill of natural rock sculptures, we returned with relief to the wide open expanse of the beach, where we could see 'em coming. At the other end, we found more beautiful rock of a slightly different sort with fewer places for a crocodile to lie in ambush. We followed that around the corner to a second long beach, which was really only the very bottom of some pretty impressive dunes of blinding white sand.

The tide was coming up by then and we wanted to get back to our dinghy before the water did. We had set an anchor, but neither one of us liked the idea of having to swim, or even wade, out to it. We had been ashore for over four hours, while we'd just set out for a quick walk on the beach.