Day 54

Day 54 Derby

Well we are off to Derby today from Broome. Maureen as usual went off to the beach and came back just before 8:30 so we were off to a late start. We had an appointment with my cousin Ann for 10:30

Sunrise at Cable Beach

Pat, Ann and me

at Town Beach so we went to it with gusto. We had breakfast and then started packing and we were o the road at 10:30ish. Off to Town Beach and we caught up with Ann and Pat and had a coffee and caught up with the gossip and what they were doing. Whilst we were there the Ranger went past and set up crocodile warning signs as one had been seen there yesterday and then wandered down the beach to see if he could see it. We were chatting when the people behind us said they could see it. Pat also said he could see it and sure enough there it was straight out from the beach. Naturally the ranger was not there, he had gone up the beach and over a hill. We watched it move across the beach about 100m off the shore. An ambulance officer who was taking a break went off to see if he could find the ranger.

Town Beach Cafe

Meanwhile, the crocodile was joined by another about 50m behind. The ranger came over the hill and spotted them. He wandered over near us and we asked him how big they were and he said “about the size of a palm frond” how come? He said because that is what they are! How disappointing.

We hit the road and drove off towards Derby. The drive was again different from the road to date. There were more trees on the side of the road and lots of mallee type trees that restrict the view from the road. What did become more prevalent was boab trees. They started to appear everywhere. The ground colour also changed as the termite mounds are now grey. They are also of a different style. Whereas we have had the big 2m high fat things, we now have skinny little ones that are rarely taller than a metre and there are thousands of them. The boab trees

New termite mounds

Bull beside the road

are everywhere and there are some huge examples as well as some baby ones.

I have mentioned before that we are always looking for black cows like on the signs, well we saw some today – they were huge Brahma bulls just off the side of the road and totally unperturbed about the traffic. We were coming up to a bridge on a bend and we were just coming round the bend when there were two cows in the middle of the road with their backs to us. I hit the horn and the brakes and they just turned around and looked at us like “what?” after a second or two they moved off the road, again in no big hurry. As we were going we were thinking of our eldest son Gavin who

Baby Boab

Cows on the road

was playing in the hockey grand final with the Peel Rebels. We were hoping to get some phone coverage but could get nothing. We got to Willare Bridge roadhouse and there was this huge phone tower. We pulled over and got out the hotspot and Maureen’s tablet and got onto the internet and Facebook to check it out but no scores. We were pretty sure that the game was over so we kept monitoring it. Maureen’s phone suddenly came up with a signal and then just before it died we got a message from gave lost 4-3,

Narrow bridge

Baby Boab

devastated, at least they have won the promotion game and go up to the big leagues next year.

We arrived in Derby just before 4:00, not too bad given we left Broome at 12:35. We booked in to Gateway to the Kimberly Caravan Park and there is hardly anyone here. We setup shop, called Gavin to get the bad news and it was not too bad given that they lost in the last 30 seconds of second extra time. We took a quick run down to the harbour as it is supposed to be the highest tide times the next few days then went back to Girt to get tea under way and listen to the

baby Boab

Fitzroy Crossing turnoff

footy (have to listen, not TV here). We met our neighbours, Peter and Henny and had a chat whilst we listened to the Dockers romp home – go the Dockers.