Derby

The caravan park at Derby was filling fast on 21 June, and we joined a queue of patient nomads desperate to unhook and get into the laundry. Tony had prepared them for our arrival, so we set up next to each other and we at least made a show by washing the accumulation of Kimberley dust and mud off. We headed to the wharf where we made a booking at the restaurant, in hopes of finding some good barramundi. The tide in Derby is the biggest range anywhere in Australia, and compares with those found in the UK, at 12 metres. We leant over the railings to see the surge of water eddying around the piles; brown as tan boot polish. With the tide risen, and overlooking the lit up wharf buildings across the water, we enjoyed a good meal, if not yet the Barra we search for. Getting staff for Derby’s best eating place is so shaky they teeter on closing. The owner, Phil, described the difficulties faced by traders in a state where the miners are distorting the whole economy with big payouts. Our waitress was in fact a rock crusher from Cockatoo Island earning $90K a year, home for a fortnight earning pin money. The dining table view was however stunning.

Derby is a sorry place. Surrounded by mud flats and mangrove, it would have been a most challenging outpost of humanity a century ago. Broome was and is the centre of the pearling industry and demand from overseas immense. Sadly, aborigines were forcibly taken from areas such as Windjana, to be divers, alongside the Japanese, Macassans, Chinese and others who voluntarily worked at this most dangerous activity. The death notices of the time seem to be the bends or berri berri. The Pioneer Cemetery (pictured) is full of people who met an “accidental” death at age about 30. The open sided gaol in Derby is where aborigines and witnesses to crimes alike, were gaoled until a magistrate would appear, sometimes six months later. They were unprotected from the elements apart from a roof over their heads. So Derby’s highlights (apart from an excellent pizza) for me anyway, were rather grim and I was happy to leave it behind, in favour of the delights of Middle Lagoon.