Blogs from Derby, Western Australia, Australia, Oceania - page 2

Some destinations are a major attraction in them selves, but Derby historically has been a staging post and a cultural melting pot. I guess the town is most famous (along with this part of the Kimberley) for its Boab or Bottle Trees. Yet even these wonders of nature have a significant place in Derby History. As trees go, they are a mid height deciduous tree with a bottle like trunk. However, they do not burn, live long lives and have hollow centres which become home to many creatures including snakes. Its thought that the Prison Boab tree is about 1000 years old. They are also a wonderful shade tree when in full leaf giving relief from the midday sun. But these same trees have been used also as prison cells for Aboriginal People from the West ... read more

Believe it or not a blog without photos. 30th. We visited the Kimberley School of the Air, what an incredibly interesting experience. We had a guided tour of the facility and the school system was explained to us. We then piled into a studio and watched and listened in to a lesson for year 2/3's. Gone are the radio's. The teacher and students are all connected via satillite and the internet and use a program to interact. Everyone is seeing exactly the same thing and the teacher has put together lessons in powerpoint which is broadcast as they move through the learning experience. One comment by the teacher is that by introducing this technology which is only available to the students and not using the radio a community link has been lost. People used to listen ... read more

Geo: -17.3048, 123.632Well we missed Windjana Gorge as it rained and they closed the roads for a couple of days and we didn't want to miss our flight later in the week. We stayed in Fitzroy Crossing for another couple of days and then went onto Derby 2 days early.Derby is a great country town. We saw the Prison Tree which is said to be about 1500 years old. The town has created a wet lands from the waste water recycling and we decided we weren't going to have any duck for tea as there were thousands there. The sunsets were great.We checked out Myall's Bore and cattle trough which is 120 meters long. Italy may have the leaning tower of Pisa but Australia has the leaning Boab of Derby ha ha who needs to travel ... read more

Day 1372 I was up at 6.30am feeling very tired, but very keen to get on with the next leg of my journey, today I fly up to meet with Andy in Broome. At 8.30, Rob and June very kindly drop me off at Perth Airport, we say our goodbyes and they head off to get on with their day and I head into the airport to drop my luggage in. I am not sure if we have mentioned before but we use the Qantas Q tag system, we have a coded bag tag and you place your luggage on the baggage drop conveyer belt and then scan your boarding pass (the one on the i-phone usually) and then it reads your Q tag and your luggage is sent on it’s way. Now for me, my ... read more

Kindred Spirit. Blog Day 1357 (Firstly) a quick message to Helen Sheridan at Woodstock,-Get well soon!! Here we go again, the alarm went off at 4.00m and I sprang out of bed, showered, shaved, grabbed my bags and was waiting outside on the pavement at 04.55 for my 5.00 am Taxi. There was a light drizzle on of rain, on this Thursday morning in Canberra, so I waited underneath a canopy for the Taxi to arrive, the morning was cold, dark and wet, and suddenly there was an unusual rumble, and to my left down the road I saw the lights of the taxi about 500 Yards away, the rumble was getting louder and so was the taxi and when the taxi was only a 100 yards away, the rumble had turned in to a massive ... read more