Fitzroy Crossing like most of the small outback towns are just small hamlets with a few houses & mainly aboriginal people, if you are lucky a small grocery store, one or two fuel station/road house (to eat basic meals & very basic groceries) & one or two caravan parks.  The other sad thing is that most stores etc. have heavy duty security mesh on them.  Homesteads are usually fuel station, basic meals, sometimes you can pick up frozen bread & some tin foods.  Often they have cheap bush sites for camping with or without toilet facilities & fantastic bird life (if you are lucky a nice waterhole).  Many rivers & creeks we cross are just sand & rocks.  Life is so different out here, we use so little water & hardly any power (early to bed & early to rise).

An early start (nothing new) we are leaving today.  After breakfast the 4 of us had to wash the very dirty caravans, they couldn’t be towed with shiny cars like that.  At Fitzroy Crossing water is a NEVER ENDING resource (is there such a thing?) the sprinklers are on 24 hours a day (I wonder if they have a never ending money well too).  The drive is easy on the tar road, back to 90 km/hr.  The scenery is flat land dry grass, small trees & shrubs.  At one place on either side of the road two “jump ups” a poor excuse to call them a mountain range.  We almost missed (tourist’s photo opportunity) the BIG Boab tree because they didn’t put a sign out.  Just before Derby they have a big Boab tree jail with information about it & the sad plight of aborigines in the hands of the new settlers.

Then, finally, we reached the western end of Gibb River Road just outside of Derby.

Derby is a town of about 5,000 mainly aboriginal people, 2 caravan parks, IGA & Woolworths grocery stores a few cafes, other than that very few other stores.  We are almost in town at the Kimberly Entrance Caravan Park – it has everything these civilized parks have.  John has been having trouble with his caravan hitch for a while & now it has really got out of shape, he had to search out a 4WD place to get it fixed.  We have to stay longer in Derby than planned because we couldn’t get on a whole day seaplane & boat cruise to see the Horizontal Waterfall until Monday.

One of our new neighbours told us something very exciting, that a touring South Australian Opera company was putting on “La Boheme” tonight.  Like all civilized people (who have been deprived culture) we rushed out & bought tickets.  We found a small café & had a nice sea food salad.   In the afternoon we had cheese, fresh vegetables & drinks with Sue & John.  Ron & I went to Woolworths to stock up on fresh food & went to explore Derby – like always with Ron we end up at the wharf where we had the freshest Barramundi & chips & watched a magnificent sun set – we had no camera with us.

We had problems – no appropriate clothing for the opera – we scrubbed up & put on clean clothes (not ironed) & the locals (around 100 of the who’s who) didn’t throw us out of the city hall (it had a magnificent boab tree out the front with leaves on it).  WHAT A TREAT WE HAD, sitting outside under the stars with a slight breeze swaying the palm trees.  The opera singers had great voices & they performed a wonderfully touching entertainment under the conditions. The orchestra was outstanding & complemented the performers very well. To top the night off, a lovely walk back to the caravan park on a beautiful balmy starlit night.