Willari (Fitzroy River) – Paradise – Fitzroy Crossing

Last night was really cold. Even the dog wanted to curl up under the covers. The forecast in Broome was a very chilly 10oC. We had to reach for the throw rug (on top of the doona!) to keep us and the dog warm.

We actually went in search of Paradise but think it was actually a property and was behind a gate, with no sign, so didn’t venture in, so it seems we weren’t welcome in Paradise. Sorry Terry & Ange. We also tried the turn before Paradise, Camballin, one that Terry & Ange said they’d been too, but the road was too corrugated so we turned around. We couldn’t handle 50kms of this (each way)!

We were greeted on our entry to Fitzroy Crossing by two gorgeous Jabiru’s taking off from a park just before we hit town. Actually we found the town to be quite clean, since our last visit. Obviously the alcohol restrictions, coupled with the closure of the Crossing Inn (well it seems to be only open for short stints (not sure on the alcohol regulations, but it appears that drinking is only allowed at the resort, and no take-away is permitted excepts I think half a carton on a Wednesday afternoon or something like that), but the lovely 100 year old building had been turned into a lovely Aboriginal Art Gallery for local artists. It was very well put together, and also culminated in a gorgeous anti-graffiti campaign that seemed to have gone a whole lot further, by giving the kids free reign at the local high school to come up with artwork for the outside of the previously always graffittied exterior. They had done a terrific job. The place was spotless, green and really inviting.

Found a nice place to camp on the banks of the Fitzroy River, that no one else had appeared to have discovered. We soon realised it was located right next to their sewerage farm, so we relocated closer to the large resort but set back about 200m off the Great Northern Highway. We had quite a peaceful sleep, except for the unexpected visitation of about a million insects attracted by the lights (or perhaps the sewerage). We found they got in all around the badly designed area where the windows and the flywire don’t meet. We were breathing them in, inhaling them and generally getting them stuck to every part of our body during the night!