Kimberley - Western Australia

 Australia's last frontier.

Welcome to the Kimberley Region of Western Australia

camel rides on cable beach, Broome                                             

 The Kimberley was one of the earliest settled parts of Australia, with the first arrivals landing about 40,000 years ago from the islands of what is now Indonesia. Alexander Forrest trekked across from the western coast to the Northern Territory in 1879. Forrest was the first European man to discover and name the Kimberley district, the Margaret and Ord Rivers, the King Leopold Ranges, and the fertile area between the Fitzroy and Ord River. Forrest subsequently set himself up as a land agent specialising in the Kimberleys and was thus instrumental in the leasing of over 51,000,000 acres (210,000 km2) in the region during 1883.

The Majestic Mitchell falls in the Kimberley                        

 In 1881, Philip Saunders and Adam Johns, in the face of great difficulties and dangers found gold in various parts of the Kimberley’s. Early in 1881 the first five graziers, who called themselves the Murray Squatting Company, took up 120,000 behind Beagle Bay and named it Yeeda Station. They became the first men to shear sheep in the southern Kimberley’s in 1883. There was further European settlement in 1885, when cattle were driven across Australia from the eastern states in search of good pasture lands. Many other Europeans arrived soon after, when gold was discovered around Halls Creek. 

Crossing the Pentecost River (Gibb River Road) with the Cockburn Range in the background                        

 The population of the Kimberley is only about 41,000, but this figure is growing at a rate of 4.8% per year, around three times the state average. The population is fairly evenly distributed, with only three towns having populations in excess of 2,000: Broome (15,000), Derby (3,600) and Kununurra (5,000). Approximately 33% of the region's population are of Aboriginal descent.