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Wth the free camp site at Lennard River so crowded on the 4th night we needed to move on, anyway we were running out of supplies.....
We headed off from Lennard River at 7:25 am 27th along the last of the Gibb expecting the road to be all bitumin as indicated by the map. Wrong again, about half of it was dirt, but it was in good condition and we were able to make very good time. Along the way I kept seeing what looked like new shoots which had germinated as a result of the rains and were pushing through what looked like a flower bud. I got GMan to stop and got out to take a photo and it turned out to be some type of fungus. We were booking in to the caravan park at 9:45 am.
We were warned by two different sets of people to not go into the first park on the right, but to wait and go to the one through town on the left. Having learned from experience this advise is generally excellent we are now in the Kimberley Entrance park and it is good. The facilities are clean and some
new, great washing machines and hanging space. A couple of days later we cruised past the first park and are very glad we ended up here.
Washing was my first priority 11 days of washing from both dusty and muddy conditions. Graham hadn't finished the outside set up and I had already filled 4 of the big Maytag machines with clothes, bedding and towels. We used up a whole rotary clothes line of hanging space.
Next we caught up with the email and put together a blog complete with quite a large number of photographs. We also caught up with Shirley and Dave's blog.
We wandered off to the camping shop and managed to get everything we needed then to Woolies to check it out. What a difference to the Coles in Kununurra. Giesen Sav Blanc was $8 cheaper in Derby and only $2 more expensive that Clare!
On the 28th we walked down to the main shoping area to try and see if there was one of the cheap shops, but no go. In the afternoon we went to the information centre then out onto the jetty to watch the tide come in. Today the
tide was a mere 11.54 metre range. The sound of the water rushing under the jetty was astonishing and the speed it was moving at was incredible. We got to the jetty at 2:15 pm and it peaked at 3:54 pm. The photos say it all. A truely amazing sight. Whilst we were watching the tide there were people fishing around us. No-one was catching anything. Then an indigenous man with a couple of small girls arrived tossed in a crab pot and wandered off to buy them a treat. 8 minutes later he pulled in his pot and there was a magnificent mud crab. I took a photo for you Robbie.
We then proceeded to the chippie and had snapper and chips in the park area there. The chips were very ordinary but the fish was real snapper and fresh. A nice family outing with the boys who actually behaved today.
29th. The people in the kimberley Kamper next to us packed up and left this morning. Then everyone else around us packed up and left. We must have done something wrong.
We did some sightseeing. Went to the Wharfinger House Museum and caught up on
some early information on aviation, telecommunications, history and artifacts of the area. A nice little place which you view by getting a key from the Information Centre. Needs a good dust though.
Next we visited the old Derby Gaol in the main street. Made me ashamed. It must have been appalling to be locked up there. We then proceeded to the pioneer cemetery. As we pulled up the trees were full of raptors and the lush native grasses in the cemetery were covered in a mob of kangaroos. What is the collective noun for kangaroos? Is it mob, it was instinctive to write that. There must have been 60-70 of them spread out across the whole area and different species, I saw greys, reds (smaller than we are used to) and wallabys. They watched us and as we moved towards them they bounded off into the bush which borders the back.
We got a photograph of the grave of William Richardson the policeman shot by Pigeon the aboriginal tracker for turned activist in the 1880's. One of his hiding places was Tunnel Creek which we will visit in a few days. There were very few headstones but hundreds
of graves.
I was moved by about 8 graves, 5 of which were for children less than one year old, which are still being tended to, covered in flowers, toys etc more than 50 years after they were interred. Incredible. As we pulled away the kangaroos were returning to their grazing.
Our final stop for the day was sunset from the jetty. There was a lot of cloud precisely where the sun went down, so we did not get the spread of light expected but it was still a magnificent sight. I expect to go back again on Saturday night with the Oakley's for another viewing.
I note in their blog tonight from Port Hedland it was raining, they had better not bring that with them.
Even though there are few words with this blog there are already lots of photos to accompany it, so I will post this and another one before we leave on Sunday if there is anything to report.
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Delores
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Hi from Desert Sky.
Hello we just love your blog the photo's are fantastic and its so nice to read what you are doing etc. We heard about the rain so glad it did not hold you up. Could you email me some of your photos to put up on our face book as you are been followed on it. Carry on having a great time Rudi & myself are going to try and get away the long week end . Travel safe and enjoy.