Derby 4 July

Coming out of the back country from Shay Gap, where BHP have a “temporarily shut down” mine complete with 50kms of bitumen road, an airstrip with hangar and lighting, and signs and locked gates making it plain you won’t get in even if you have long rubber necks,

there is an abrupt change as you cross the Great Northern Highway and run the 15 or so kilometers to the coast. There are a series of pastoral properties along the coast towards Broome, 80 Mile beach, Port Smith, Barn Hill etc. The word was that after 80 Mile caravan park (which is a very fine and well run operation that has re-emerged after near wipe out in a cyclone a few years ago), Barn Hill would be the favoured place to stop. We only drove the hundred or so kilos between the two places that day, and pitched up there after the long drive in to the property. In front of us on arrival was nomad heaven. Happy groups of oldies with a handful of younger ones feeling out of place perhaps, grouped around a well manicured bowling green set beside shady trees.

A simple flat roofed shelter housed a smiling reception lady selling hot fresh bread, ice cream cones with serious pedigree, and the offer of a $17 three course Sunday roast to be had that very evening under the trees, as the sun went down. Did we hesitate? Only the advice that the place was almost bursting gave us some concern, but we picked our way through deep and difficult sand to a slot on the cliff edge with our name on it. Couldn’t believe our luck. After we completed the set up routine the breeze lifted a tad and we discovered we were down wind of the facilities, but you have to take the good with the bad as someone once wisely said, and with all the flaps down and a cooling breeze blowing even the broadcast of the Dockers playing badly (Sunday footy is as popular in WA as Saturday footy. We were able to “enjoy” footy continuously from Cape Keraudren, 80 Mile beach, and finally Barn Hill) could not dampen our enthusiasm. The roast arrived in an insulated trailer and was served by young friends of the station owner’s son, down from Broome for some work experience and a serious piss up no doubt. Soup served at the table, mains queued for in civilised fashion, as with the ice cream and fruit desert. All for $17.

After the usual muesli breakfast we struck camp earlyish to make the run into Broome to stock up on whites and beer, some bathroom essentials, and quickly up the dirt road running along the west coast of the Dampier peninsula, exploring options along the coast where we might have a free night. It was a hot and tiresome drive on shitty corrugations, with almost every possible place to stop occupied. We ended up 50kms or so up the track at James Price Point, which you will doubtless remember is the place that Woodside wanted to pipe its gas to and ship out to Asia if only Colin Barnett would bend all the rules and give them a lease. Glad he never got to stuff up a magnificent bit of coast. We found a spot that was in the spikey grass but overlooking the ocean quite as fine as Barn Hill, just no roast! Gorgeous sunset as usual though.

Instead we were 100 metres from a wonderful truck perched on the edge.

A sight to behold and who said the hippie movement was over? The two young ladies and their gentleman friend emerged at dusk, nature’s children, burnt as berries and completely unadorned, to descend to the beach for their evening swim. Taking a quick peep with the binoculars at their rig whilst they were communing, I could see that the interior appeared to be occupied completely by plants. They appeared to want for nothing! 

Another early start saw us out of the corrugations again (the Prado has some cracked bodywork again – it goes with the territory) and on the road to Derby, all this to fill in time before the family gig starts for us on 5^th July. The drive east now has us foxed because we have decided to continue anti clockwise on this journey but we are re-thinking the wisdom of some thousands of kilos extra driving. That decision has been put off until the 9^th when we have to leave Broome. The country is well covered with dense vegetation going east until the savannah with its magnificent Boabs takes over on the last hundred kilos or so into Derby. The approach is across the mighty Fitzroy River, that is dry now. We are in crocodile country and every crossing over long pools and mangroves has the potential for thousands of the buggers eyeing the tourists lazily to see me. The other serious threat is sand fleas or flies I don’t know which, that present a more likely irritation to one’s day. So here we are on our second day at the Derby Caravan Park, under shady trees again,

Camped under a Boab

breeze taking the bite out of the heat, and another night booked at the Wharf Restaurant (award winning coffee!), it being both excellent and the first choice for a good meal served to a setting sun over the Derby mangroves (tidal range 11.8metres – the highest in Australia). Viewed from the restaurant deck the crocs seem less interested, (I haven’t actually seen one yet, but I know they are there!) however some serious protection is warranted for the little flea biters. Derby is surrounded by tidal mud flats and distant mirages. Many buildings have gone up in the ten years since we last passed through, but the basics don’t seem to have changed. There is limited port action with a mineral sands operation but little else. A very large abbatoir is processing meat about 50 kilometres away, although the lack of political stability in the meat export trade is scaring off much investment and some graziers are having trouble finding a market, so we hear. The tourists take in the sorry history of mistreatment of aboriginal people, that continued until 1975. The Boab Prison tree, the Derby gaol, these are morbid places where unbelievable hardship was handed out even if someone had been brought into custody as a witness. The water holes were fouled by stock, the native people reacted and took stock, the newcomers rounded up the natives both for punishment and for labour in the pearling industry in Broome, the natives speared the newcomers, the young men were sent south to prison, “to quieten the natives down”. Didn’t happen, misery all round.