'Wherarwee' in Oz: 06-07 Derby

Since leaving Katherine & heading West, the bull dust has been getting finer & finer, it’s like talcum powder. It’s in our hair, in our eyes & ears, right through the van & as soon as you throw your clothes in the wash, the water turns orange. It’s starting to fray our nerves somewhat so Liz said maybe we should stay in caravan parks till we get to the coast. We still have the bull dust, but at least we have showers & laundries. Kununura was a good sized town with all the services very central, even our van park was right in the center of town. The biggest drawback was the temp. In the 30’s during the day & mid 20’s at night. So …….. tempers have been a bit short of late & we’ve decided to make haste to the coast.

Leaving Kununura, our first stop was Halls Creek. The van park was so full we were doubling up on sites, but it was a park. Their was a pub (sorry, hotel. No pubs WA) across the road so, after another hot day travelling, we had an ale or three, at $7.50 a schooner that’s all we could have. The next morning we stopped at the only service station in town for fuel but found they had no diesel. We get 650K’s, + or – 70K’s depending on the road & wind.

We had travelled 360K’s to Halls Creek & it was another 291K’s to Fitzroy River (the next fuel). O.K. in theory & with the right conditions we should do it, but to make sure I emptied the 20lt drum of spare fuel into the tank. Well, we arrived safely with 25lts left in the tank.

The park here was all grassed & there was a hotel connected to the park so we had another coldie on tap to help us settle for the night.

Before leaving in the morning we drove to Geikie Gorge in the Kimberlies & took a boat ride up the gorge, lots of freshies on the banks & the sides of the gorge were completely different from anything seen before. Soft sandstone, worn into the most amazing shapes, & the flood line, well above the present water level. The kiosk where we bought our tickets had markers up the walls for each time it had been flooded, & there were quite a few. The 2011 level was 500ml above the roofline, but the 2003 level was 2mts above the roof line. They were talking about moving the kiosk to higher ground, mind you, the river, at present, is nowhere near the place. The thing we noticed is that the flooding is becoming more regular. Since travelling into WA we are amazed at the amount of fresh water here. We were told that if Sydney Harbour were emptied, the amount of water pouring through this gorge alone would refill it in 11 hours! Wow! Back in town we went to the local art gallery but saw nothing we liked. Then it was on the road again on our way to Derby on the coast. What a disappointment for us, it was nothing like we imagined it would be. Definitely not tourist oriented. We brought some lunch then proceeded on our way to a roadhouse & campground some 60K’s away where we spent a relaxing evening before proceeding to Broome.