Derby

Derby! Hmmm. What can I say. Not the greatest destination in terms of tourism. Quite a dirty and run down place. However it had an awesome jetty. We decided to hunt for saltwater crocodiles at the jetty. We got talking to a group of Indigenous people who were fishing there in the mudflats. An elderly Indigenous man told us not to look for them. He explained his relationship with crocodiles like this- “we don’t go looking for them and they don’t go looking for us”.

One fisherman said he had seen a saltwater crocodile near the mangroves that afternoon but we couldn’t find it.

Prison Boab Tree

There were some highlights of Derby though. One of them was the prison Boab tree just out of Derby. It has some sad history but it was one of the biggest Boab trees we had seen. Back in the early days it was a place they used to keep the prisoners locked up on their way in to Derby from the pastoral stations. Majority of the prisoners were Indigenous and their usual crime was cattle stealing.

An interesting fact about Boab Trees is that their wood does not burn. They only have leaves during the wet season and of course they contain water in their trunks.

Derby SDA Church

We had a lovely Sabbath at Derby SDA church. We had had three lovely Sabbaths previous to that at Broome church and had learned about their regional day they were conducting on the Sabbath we would be there. The Pastor there does a lot of community work with the local people and there were lots of Indigenous kids there. Some beautiful items and singing and a lovely service followed by a yummy lunch.

Birdwood Station

Another awesome place about Derby was Birdwood Station, just 15 minutes from Derby and at the beginning of Gibb River Road. We did not want to stay in Derby as we did not feel safe there. We looked up Birdwood Station and when we got there it had a sign saying they were full. We did not have phone reception to call them to confirm this so we just thought we would drive in anyway. Fortunately the lady there told us we were welcome and that they had room but they had limits from the council as to how many they could accommodate. This was where we stayed. It was a beautiful place. Very safe, very tropical, well taken care of and of course it had cattle and goats. There were plenty of Boab trees around. In fact, the station had a little nursery with rows and rows of little Boab trees they were nurturing.

The type of trees and natural flora of the Kimberleys is slightly different to the Pilbara. Here there are Boabs everywhere and loads of native fig trees which have a cute little yellow flower. The flowers were blooming beautifully at this time of year.