A couple of days in Halls Creek then through to Derby.

I did say in my last blog that I had something to say relating to our indigenous brothers and sisters. I wrote a lot of stuff and then deleted it.

Halls Creek and Derby are interesting places, the bird watching has been good, a couple of cafes (at Derby at least) serve near excellent coffee and there is a good amount of commercial activity around the place.

Halls Creek has some interesting history, it sits on the northern edge of the Great Sandy Desert and is famous for having Australia’s first gold discovery in 1885. It’s hard to believe that some 15,000 prospectors came from all over the world to try and make their fortunes. The country is wild and unforgiving and it is no surprise to learn that many people perished for lack of water. It was the logical gathering place for drovers commencing the long cattle drive along the legendary Canning Stock Route. Halls Creek was relocated to its present site in 1955.

Old Halls Creek still exists (just) along the dusty, corrugated Duncan Highway, but apart from a couple of ruins and empty streets, a very old and overgrown cemetery and a struggling caravan park / mining equipment dump, there’s not much to see.

China Wall, part of an old quartzite reef just outside of town is worth a look and Caroline Pool is a little further along the dusty Duncan Highway is a nice change from the dust and the heat and it offers crocodile-free swimming and a pleasant camp site.

Derby’s claim to fame is that it is the first town settled in the Kimberley. Situated on King Sound, Derby experiences really high tides reaching up to 12 metres and it really rushes in and a visit to Derby Wharf during high and low tide is a popular pastime.

The Derby wharf is one of the few that allow mere mortals like us to drive around on it stickybeaking at the commerce in progress. A huge mine truck was brought back to town the other day , disrupting traffic for some time ad it was carried through town in company with a couple of workers  to lift the power lines clear.

The Mary Island mine and, no doubt, other mines in the area seems to require an amazing variety of stuff to keep them going, all sent out to the island by barges.

The barges operating around Derby (like enormous  landing craft with a ramp at the front) are able to take the equivalent of a couple of double road train trailers, with all sorts of general logistics, mine chemicals, sundries and, of course, fuel. We watched the other day as one barge took on 100,000 plus litres of diesel from a triple road train that drove on to the wharf, the diesel was in addition to a number of loaded trailers.

We have once again been confronted by a display of a mysterious WA cult. Adherents to this cult gather just before sunset at any number of vantage points and, while drinking beer or wine or other alcoholic beverages, sometimes with other comestibles (look it up) watch the sun go down, often into the water. We guess it’s a Western Australian thing, but many people from the eastern states seem to be joining the cult as well! We’ll keep an eye on this phenomenon!

Quite late one night while taking Maestro for a walk I noticed a Tawny Frogmouth sitting on my HF aerial, just feet away from where I was standing. It made a nice photo and the brief flash didn’t seem to bother him. He used the aerial for some time as a base for his feeding activities around the nearby street light.

There have also been a number of encounters with whistling kites in the area and I was able to shoot a couple of photos of a kite as well.

Next blog will be Broome, but we could be out of range for a few days and may not be able to post.