Jul 2008

We said a farwell to Derby, well at least for a couple of weeks. Visited the new Jila Gallery. There is some really good stuff being setup in Derby, which is great to see.

We then headed off to see Myalls Bore and Cattle Trough, 7km from Derby near the Prison Tree. The bore was dug in 1910/11. It replaced the original well from the early 1890s. The bore cost 2700 pounds to build and the trough was added later at an additional 500 pounds. These enabled the drovers and cattle to have their first water in days while they were being herded to town to be sold.

We also visited right next to this, the Boab Prison Tree. This huge tree is believed to be around 1,500 years old and has a girth of 14.7 metres. It was used as staging point for prisoners being walked into Derby in the early days.

We returned in time to get a lovely dinner in at Som Thai and watching the Pigram Brothers at the Roey. We had a great night. The weather was warm and the atmosphere was electric with everyone into the spirit of the evening, especially Cecelia a local health worker that we met who danced the night away with us on the dance floor. We staggered home to a nice comfy bed.

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!

Finished the evening off back at Mowanjum for the second night. We just missed the older corroboree and stayed only a while.

Today we headed off to Derby for part of the Boab Festival, or more importantly the Mowanjum Festival. It’s an aboriginal community about 30kms out of Derby on the Gibb River Road. They’ve recently got some funding for a magnificent Art Centre to be built. They have an amazing art collective running and teaching many people the finer points of their local painting style as well as Boab Nut Carving, rope making and paperbark container making, and wood carving. Its all quite stunning and very professionally put together. It is also a dry community, and the whole festival was also a smoke free event! Great going as Ange worked with them for their funding grant from Health Ways (which requires events be smoke free), and we helped deliver the signage for the event in our van.

if you look closely at this picture you can see an old boat propeller that was placed next to a newly planted tree sometime after it was sunk in 1910. The space between the sapling and the propeller wasnt sufficient to take into its growth of the next few decades, so the tree has moulded itself around the metal work of this newly formed artwork, creating a lovely metal stain in the wood.

The event started at 4pm and went into the night. There were local bands, and also cultural exchanges with Canadian Indians and NZ Maori’s also invited to present and attend. There were also acrobats and a fabulous kids corroboree presented to the attendees. It was a really well run event with food and drink also available to purchase, as well as a boab nut carving competion and art exhibition in the new gallery. The event was in its 11th year of operation, and you can see by the way it was run. We all really enjoyed it. Especially the kids. They were fantastic!

Another relaxing day dawned on us with Steve working on his Pork Pies and me completing my 3rd book since arriving!

Beijing Confidential by Jan Wong is an interesting portrayal of one person’s journey through being the first foreign University student allowed into China after the revolution. Jan is a 3rd generation Canadian Chinese immigrant who decided to study in China and learn Mandarin during her time. She ends up falling into the brainwashing of the masses and outs a girl in her class. Feeling guilty for this over many years she returns to China to search out the girl to apologise. In her quest to find her, she sheds light on the times past and present as China prepares for the 2008 Olympics. I really enjoyed the story and the historical side of this book.

The Witch of Portobello is a novel by Paulo Coelho, a Brazillian writer who’s more famous novel, The Alchimist and many others have been translated into more than a dozen languages. This books is an interestingly written tale of finding true meaning in your life and using that meaning to better yourself and the world around you. I really enjoyed it.

Since I was a Princess by Jaqueline Pascarl is her second book talking about how she’s occupied her time since the abduction of her two children in 1994. She has certainly done a lot of great work; Book programs to lots of poor African schools to allow them to learn English so they can better themselves and their families; CARE Australia volunteer in Bosnia and Dili during the wars. And the break down of her second marriage and creation of her third marriage and subsequent two kids and their eventual meeting. Its quite a name dropping novel, but she has as an individual, achieved much in her short life.

Also we purchased a Bird book. We’ve seen heaps of great birds, but have no idea what they are – now we’ve no excuse!

Day of relaxing and turning left over Beef Stroganoff into Pies! Reading and Reading. Steve did a great job of making some pies. Oh I’m so hungry just writing about it!

Today Steve spent a fair part of the day cleaning Ange’s XR6, and trying to remove calcium stains on her car so they can sell it. Everyone was really impressed with his handy work! The water here is very hard - which really means is full of calcium. If you dont clean water that has sprinkled onto your car (by sprinklers) off the day it happens, it will more than likely stain your car.