Derby

Slowly wending our way towards Broome, we're camped beside the road 100km north Of there tonight, at a free spot with a real mix of other campers - a couple of large buses, some vans, a small motor home towing an enclosed trailer with a Harley, among others.

This morning we wandered along the path to Winjana Gorge, looking at the towering cliffs and the smooth white marble like rock.  Aparently they were part of a very old coral reef, but it's a bit hard to imagine it, seeing as it's now in the middle of a great, dry desert.

The lovely water hole had a big freshwater crocodile floating in the middle of it, and a white ibis keeping it's distance on the side.  The horse flies/march flies were horrific (Joseph tied a few to pieces of Nadine's hair and 'walked' them along) and we got sick of slapping ourselves every two seconds, so we headed back to the van.  On the way there we passed an olive green snake in a tree, twisting in and out of hollows in the trunk. A very fauna full walk.

A little bit more of the  Leopold Downes Road and we turned left onto the Gibb River Road, and on into Derby.

Derby has the highest tides in Australia at around 12 metres at different times in the year. We walked out around the curved jetty and looked down at the swirling brown water, and hoped no one would fall in. driving back from the jetty we passed a little white church, with a peaked roof and high bell tower, all made of corrugated iron.  It looked very cool.

  We stopped for a visit at the old Gaol, where they took aborigines and other miscreants, right up until 1974.  There were metal rings cemented into the ground of the two open 'cages', where they would attach the chains that were around their necks.  Some of the things we have done to aborigines are very sad.

Next we drove down the road to visit the big boab tree that was also used as a jail.  It is about 14 metres in circumference and hollow. Estimates are that it is  1000 years old.  Nadine was very annoyed that we weren't allowed inside the tree, but apparently big boab trees like this one are sacred to Aborigines.  Termite mounds are also sacred, and some tribes would inter their dead in big mounds and let the ants seal over the hole.  Not sure what the ants thought about that.  But you can also grind up termite mound with water and drink it to stop dysentery.....might be a useful tip. Bit of a dash to the loo tonight!

The jail boab tree was next to the longest water trough in the southern hemisphere.  Don't feel too bad if you've never heard of it.  It was a long, narrow cement trough built in 1916 near an artesian bore (that's a drill into the ground for water, not a boring artist) and could water 500 bullocks at once without going dry, which was probably a real relief to the drovers who would drive herds of cattle up here to ship out overseas.  The Derby port used to be a big cattle shipping port, and they would walk the cattle from the centre of  Australia out to the ports.  it was only in the 1950s and 60s that landowners started trucking cattle.  

Joseph went to visit some cattle in a truck at the petrol station in Halls Creek, hundreds of cattle crammed into double, decker trucks.  Poor things. 

Derby also has a Woolworths, so we bought a bit more fresh food, 'cause that's what they are good at, and some ice blocks, 'cause we were hot.  the weather is getting cooler though, and tonight Nadine put on a jumper and I am thinking of closing the windows in the van.  there is a decent cold breeze that might have everyone catching a chill!
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Vicki