Todays title is for my great mate Radar (and mum and Janet), just in case they have not got enough stick from yesterdays game yet! We left Fitzroy Crossing after a leisurely start to the day. Not much between Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing and about the same between Fitzroy Crossing and Derby. We drove right through for about 3 hours to reach Derby just before lunch to stock up and get some more fuel (used 1100L so far). On the outskirts of Derby we passed through several fires and could hear the airplane on the UHF spotting them. At one point the road was so dark from smoke we were down below 60KMH. Fires burn right up to the edge of the road and you can feel the flames at times as you pass. Nobody seems to concerned about them up here.

A good plume

It got worse but we had ‘camera issues’

Derby seems much bigger than it looks but is still quite a small town. Sitting at the local fuel depot in no hurry to get served while Sharon was in the supermarket a woman in a bright orange shirt walked over to me and told me they had been closed for a while and the people in front of me were the last customers. A drive back around to central Derby and the very awkwardly placed BP filled our tanks then. I took a wrong turn getting back to the IGA but eventually arrived just as Sharon emerged and the bottle shops opened. They were lined up getting their slabs or four buck chuck as soon as the doors opened.

We headed off towards Windjana Gorge on the western end of the Gibb River Road. It did not seem overly hot in Derby, only around 28-30. Once we arrived at Windjana Gorge camping area it had warmed considerably. We setup camp and chilled out over a couple of very cold pear ciders out of the Waeco and planned tomorrow’s adventure to see some fresh water crocodiles and another gorge. Tomorrow afternoon we will head off to Tunnel Creek to walk through the cave system about 30KM from here.

Camp Windjana

Gorge starts in the gap in the middle

Sunset on the range