ADVENTURE
Kimberley coast paradise
The Bush Camp is as far away as it gets... but what an idyllic setting
It's
dawn at Faraway Bay and guests are waking to the sound of bush birds and
the ocean rolling shells back and forth on the beach below the cliff top
where their bush huts are perched, each with a birds-eye view of one of the
most remote and beautiful bays in the Kimberley.
As guests make their way to the Eagle Lodge for a sumptuous breakfast and another day in paradise, Bruce Ellison and his staff are readying the boats for fishing and exploring the spectacular Kimberley gorges that surround Faraway Bay.
It takes a special sort of Australian to set up a tourist bush camp in such a remote location - the Kimberley Diamond coast, 280 km north west of Kununurra. The only easy way in is by air, but for Bruce Ellison a more quintessential Australian than any Crocodile Dundee, the isolated coastal country around Faraway Bay is where he is most content, poking along in his dinghy when he finds the time, fishing and exploring.
This
hard-working optimist with a sharp intellect, alert blue eyes and skin the
color of the spectacular Kimberley gorges, has worked in outback northern
Australia for 33 years.
In the beginning, with wife Robyn and bay daughter bouncing beside him in the bull buggy, Bruce hunted buffaloes and crocodiles in the northern Territory.
Out in the bush for weeks at a time, Bruce became adept in a wide range of skills, in particular building camps using local materials that were practical and blended with the environment.
Recognised
for his bush ingenuity, he was soon commissioned to construct mobile camps
for mineral exploration companies.
He soon hit upon the idea of a tourist bush camp. Scouring the remote
and isolated Diamond Coast near Cape Londonderry, the most northern tip of
Western Australia, from a light aircraft in 1986, Bruce found the perfect
location. 
Full story: Issue 1, October - November 1998
