Australia 11

The town of Derby is an important town in the West Kimberley and is the administrative centre for Aboriginal affairs. It is on a side road and we learnt that there is not much to see there so we are giving it a miss.
One of the strange things we experienced up here is frogs in toilets and at the crocodile farm at Wyndham the people told us they have tried everything in the book to get rid of them but they always return. They somehow cling to the bowl under the rim and you don't see them until you flush - then down they come for a swim and either disappear down the pipe or scrabble back under the rim. It's very disconcerting!
At Mary Pool, when I went to put my shoes on in the morning, a tiny frog jumped out and hopped away quite merrily.

We stopped at the Willara Road House for some gas because we are well down and put about $50 worth in to get us to Broome where we hope to fill up with some cheaper fuel.

Broome is a modern holiday resort style of town with many exclusive homes and some apartment buildings being constructed. It is very hot and we had been hoping for a camp site close to Cable Beach to get a cool sea breeze. Alas, the camp, although well set up and modern with a swimming pool and excellent facilities is about 500metres from the beach. When we walked to the beach we found the only breeze around was coming off the land.

It seems at this time of the year, the population of Perth comes up here for their holidays and to get warm. Several people told us we were going the wrong way - "it's cold down there" they said and told us stories about the severe storms they had been having and we had read about. We are hoping our luck with weather holds and in the event it did.
Broome for many years was the busy centre of the pearling industry with many Japanese divers employed. It is still involved in the industry but some of the activities have been dispersed to other centres. Another very interesting story for those folk who might like to research it!
The lovely Cable Beach looks inviting but adventurous swimmers have to contend with sharks, salt water crocodiles, sea snakes and stingers (jelly fish). Hardly a recipe for a nice afternoon!

The trip to Port Headland is over 600km although my itinerary says something else.

Two prominent road houses - Sandfire and Pardoo were between us and the port where we could top up with diesel and there is a pleasant camp site by the De Gray River that we might stay at to break the long drive.
By the time we arrived at the De Gray campsite we were ready to call it a day.
One look at the area was enough to make our minds up.
We drove off the road onto a bush track and followed it alongside the river for about ¼ km where we found a nice camping place close to the track and well above the river which was about 50m away. There were already 3 or 4 other vehicles there well away from our chosen spot.
After a cool ginger beer and lemonade or 2 we went for a cool dip in the river and prepared to cook tea.

Darkness soon took over and the heat was pretty uncomfortable. Of course we could not use our air conditioning through lack of 240 volt power and it was too hot to close the back doors and putting the internal lights on attracted every insect for miles. We left the doors wide open and tried to sleep. At 1am we woke and made a cup of tea on the gas stove and chatted for a couple of hours before dropping off into a fitful doze. Various creatures could be heard during the night and the morning brought a wonderful dawn chorus from the birds at about 5am.

Camped not too far from us was a Dutch lady well into her 60's. She was on her own travelling in a VW Kombi with a canopy tied to the outside.

Typical Bulk Ore Carrier at Port Headland

Bette got into conversation with her and discovered she had been on the road for many months accompanied by her little sewing machine. She knew all the free camp sites around Australia and made a bit of cash by sewing for anyone that needed sewing. We were amused by her story where she calls into Road Houses and in return for sewing; she was given a free camp site.