Kimberley, Western Australia

I've done a few swaps with Heather in Western Australia before, and am always more than happy to swap with her as she has some truly amazing postcards. Views in Western Australia look gorgeous, and this one is no exception.



The Kimberley is one of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is located in the northern part of Western Australia, bordered on the west by the Indian Ocean, on the north by the Timor Sea, on the south by the Great Sandy and Tanami Deserts, and on the east by the Northern Territory. The Kimberley is an area of 423,517 square kilometres, which is about three times the size of England!

The Kimberley consists of the ancient, steep-sided mountain ranges of northwestern Australia cut through with sandstone and limestone gorges and steep ridges from which the extreme monsoonal climate has removed much of the soil. The southern end of the Kimberley beyond the Dampier Peninsula is flatter with dry tropical grassland and is used for cattle ranching. In parts of the Kimberley such as the valleys of the Ord and Fitzroy Rivers in the south the soils are relatively usable cracking clays, whilst elsewhere they are lateritic Orthents. Although none of the mountains reach even 1,000 metres, there is so much steep land as to make much of the region very difficult to traverse, especially during the wet season when even sealed roads are often flooded. The coast is typically steep cliffs in the north but flatter in the south, all subject to high tides.

On this card you can see the Gibb River Road crossing the Pentecost River.



Such pretty stamps on the card, too! I always love seeing different Australian stamps. These were all issued earlier this year. The one on the left commemorates the Canonisation of Mary MacKillop, while the stamp in the middle is from a set of two stamps "Christmas Island Christmas 2010". The stamp on the right is from a set of 4 stamps depicting Australian Kingfishers, this one here being the Red-backed Kingfisher.