Cruisin' Aussies: Three Days on the Road

After leaving the Bungles we had just under 900km to travel to Broome. First stop Halls Creek to fill one water tank ($2 from the Tourist Information Centre). On Christmas Day in 1885 Charlie Hall found a 28 ounce gold nugget at a site that would eventually be named after him. News of the discovery drew hoards of men to Halls Creek and the site became prospecting grounds to more than 15,000 who had travelled from all over the world to try their luck searching for gold. Many perished in the harsh outback conditions. It was a good town to play 'Spot a white person' - because most of the population was dark - under nearly every shady tree and wandering in every direction and all busy doing nothing were Aboriginals.
Continued on to Mary Pool free camp for the afternoon and night. A nice camp spot right beside the Mary River.
Next day we headed off passing through Fitzroy Crossing, drove out to Geiki Gorge and had a walk around but decided not to go on the cruise. Stayed the night at The Boab Tree free camp - named because of a very very very large Boab tree fenced off in the centre of the camp.
Next day we continued on to Derby situated on King Sound. Derby was the first town settled in the Kimberley. The first European to visit King Sound was William Dampier in 1688. It wasn't until after 1879 when Alexander Forrest led a land expedition to the north of W.A. that the pastoral industry was established. Derby has Australia's highest tidal range and in the southern hemisphere. It reaches over 12 metres.
We walked right around the jetty but it was nearly low tide so not much water at all but apparently at high tide it isn't too far below the jetty - would have been a sight to see but we couldn't wait 6 hours to see it. We also visited the Boab Prison Tree.
When we were at the tourist info Centre, Derby, David got talking to an aboriginal guy who was carving on a large boab seed pod. When we were in the Tourist Info centre they were for sale from $45 for small to $90 for large with all different carvings on them. While filling up with fuel before leaving Derby an aboriginal guy came over to us with a carved boab pod he had just done - it was a good sized one and he only wanted $25 for it so I bought it as I had been saying I would like one - so now I have one carved by Maddie!!!! It has a barramundi and a sea eagle carved on it - the story (told by Maddie) is the eagle is chasing the barramundi for his dinner!!!
We continued on to Broome, arriving about 4p.m. and booked into the Cable Beach Caravan park for 4 nights.