Fitzroy Crossing to Derby

I'm catching up, slowly but surely.........

Our next stop was Fitzroy Crossing and a visit to Geikie Gorge, once again we were on the road very early, could not wait to get out of halls creek!

The single bridges that are scattered throughout WA

We filled up petrol in Fitzroy Crossing and headed straight to the gorge which is only about 20 kms out of town.

The limestone rocks were a different colour to the ones we had been used to seeing,  which was a nice change.

We got ourselves a nice parking spot and it was so early we were the only ones there.

We did the Reef walk even though it was a stinking hot day and there were no inviting water holes.

The walk was mostly on sand, which was tough on the legs.

The water was fairly low.

The whole time we walked we had grasshoppers jumping left, right and centre, it was like an air raid, and the little buggers hurt!! I even had one jump in my mouth, so I didn't talk much after that.

This was the end of the walk, we did see a few crocs swimming around here.

I really wish I could say better things about geikie gorge but the truth is that it has been overrun by weeds and creepers that are killing all the native plants, if we had our time again we would have driven right past, it's a bit depressing.

Brenton did get hot enough to take a dip though, I was not so keen to swim with the freshies this time, the water was just that bit too murky, there is also meant to be sawfish and barramundi in here.

He survived though, but stank like dirty water the rest of the drive.

I went to wash my hands and found this little fella in the sink so I thought I would use the one next to it.......

Mum look away now.......

And there was this scary, not so little fella.......

There was not much else for us to do in Fitzroy crossing so we decided to keep on driving to Derby...

It was a huge day of driving but we were excited about the next destination so it was worth it.

We were very excited to see this sign, although it was getting darker and we were a bit worried about the wildlife!

Amazing sunset!

The caravan park in Derby was nice, with lots of space, no pool though!

Like Broome and Kununurra, derby is one of only one of three towns in the Kimberly to have a population of more than 2,000 people.

We were so excited to see the coast again, although the water started off a little murky and was not swimmer friendly due to the crocs, of course!

Derby has the highest tides in Australia, with the peak differential between low and high tide reaching 11.8 metres. (wikipedia puts it better than I would!)

We went for a walk along this jetty, the water does turn blue eventually!

Then it was back to the van to head off to Broome!!!

Derby was a nice little town.

This street reminded us of the one nears queens park.

On the way out of town we stopped to see the prison boab tree.

The police used to put prisoners in this tree whilst resting on there way to derby, the whole thing inside is hollow, and apparently home to a lot of snakes now, the biggest boab we had seen so far.

Next stop Broome, could not wait to swim in the ocean!!!