Qualla: Horizontal Falls

Horizontal Falls: Introduction

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Djanga (talk), Public domain. The name is technically accurate, which makes it stranger. A waterfall, by any ordinary understanding, falls downward. The Horizontal Falls, in the Kimberley's Buccaneer Archipelago, flow sideways. Twice a day, tidal differences of up to 10 metres force seawater through two narrow gorges in the McLarty Ranges — a seaward gap about 20 metres wide, a landward one about 10 — faster than the water can equalise on either side. The result is a sustained horizontal torrent, a waterfall running at right angles to gravity, reversing direction with every change of the tide.

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Image: Djanga (talk) | Public domain

Horizontal Falls: Physics of an Unlikely Waterfall

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Reefpix, CC BY-SA 4.0. The mechanics are straightforward, even if the effect is startling. Talbot Bay (known to the Dambimangari people as Ganbadba) is enclosed on the seaward side by the McLarty Ranges, with only two narrow gaps connecting the bay to the open ocean. When the tide rises or falls by up ...

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Image: Reefpix | CC BY-SA 4.0

Horizontal Falls: Attenborough's Wonder

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Reefpix, CC BY-SA 4.0. David Attenborough, who has seen a great deal of the natural world, called the Horizontal Falls "one of the greatest wonders of the natural world." The falls sit in the Lalang-garram / Horizontal Falls Marine Park, jointly managed by the Western Australian government and the Damb...

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Image: Reefpix | CC BY-SA 4.0

Horizontal Falls: The 2022 Accident and What Changed

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Виктор В, CC BY-SA 3.0. On 27 May 2022, a high-speed tour boat carrying 28 passengers and two crew was conducting a trip through the gorge gaps when it collided with a rock wall. More than a dozen tourists were left with serious injuries, including broken bones and head trauma. The rescue was complicate...

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Image: Виктор В | CC BY-SA 3.0

Horizontal Falls: The Kimberley Tidal Coast

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Natalie Siegel-Brown, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Horizontal Falls sit within the Buccaneer Archipelago, a scattered chain of islands, reefs, and waterways on the Kimberley coast that has some of the most extreme tidal ranges in the world. The broader Lalang-gaddam Marine Park — amalgamating the Horizontal Falls, Camden Soun...

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Image: Natalie Siegel-Brown | CC BY-SA 4.0