Just like a Biggles story - a trek across a desolate salt flat, and a crashed WWII plane.

The Kimberley coast is full of surprises.   Our latest landfall on the Oceanic Discoverer cruise at Van Sittart Bay, produced another startling discovery.  An old aircraft wreck to explore !

 Here's what happened.  Back in 1942, an American DC-3 went missing on a flight from Perth to Darwin. It overshot Broome in the dark, and crash-landed on the coast at isolated Van Sittart Bay. Miraculously all six men on board survived in a soft landing.
They were marooned for two days until a rescue aircraft ( believed to be a Qantas Corinthian flying boat) arrived. Only a few days later, the Japanese bombed Darwin.

Ingeniously, the survivors managed to use pipes off the aircraft to distil fresh water from seawater.

Well over seventy years later, we trekked across a sandy flat to approach the aircraft.  The barren scene was reminiscent of a lunar landscape.  Weird rocks on a desolate salt pan. Then a hike through recently fire burnt scrub to reach the DC-3.   I expected to see Biggles and his crew pop out from the fuselage.

You can see the wreckage of this aircraft on Google Earth. Just go to 14° 7.692'S, 126° 18.564'E.
There are many stories in the Kimberley Coast area.  This is just one of them. I particularly enjoy an adventure story, especially when as in this case it had a happy ending for the brave crew. An interesting diversion to our Kimberley cruise holiday.