Derby Day 2

Day 31

10.07.2008 - 10.07.2008 32 °C

There is no rest for the wicked at the Kimberley Entrance Caravan Park. This was our first night spent in a caravan park facility since we left home. It was a shock to the system with late arrivals, and early risers all around us. There’s nothing like a free feed to get all the piss poor pensioners up and out at 6:30am for a free sausage sizzle. It appeared FESA were doing an information session about caravan fires to all the tourists caravan parks across the top of WA to alert them to the potential fire hazards in vans. Needless to say, we (for once) beat Terry and Ange to breaky at Diamonds & Pearls in down-town Derby. Actually they were really busy and it was lucky we got in early.

We all wandered around the town, and under instruction, while Terry and Ange both had to do a bit of work, we dropped some crab pots off the jetty around 1:30pm (low tide) and were instructed to tie lambs neck to the crab pot and try our luck catching some muddies.

We met some interesting sorts on the jetty. For those of you who don’t know, Derby has the highest tides in Australia. I think I mentioned tides back in my earlier days in Broome, saying the largest tides were in Indonesia somewhere, but I have been corrected, the highest are in Nova Scotia. Anyway, it was interesting to watch the tide rapidly turn, and the muddies jumping into the pots. We caught 2 in the first lift (20 minutes into our fishing experience! Luckily the local “experts” were around to assist. We had one oversized and one undersized. We donned gloves to remove the second, but the oversized was missing both its claws as well as its next pair of legs. It was a sad and sorry looking crab, so we gave it to the lady who helped us untangle and provide general advice to us!

The next few pots gave us another 4 or 5 undersized crabs, but we really enjoyed the relaxing afternoon spent on the jetty and conversing with locals and travellers alike!