Derby

Derby is the oldest town on this stretch of coastline, but doesn't have the great beaches that Broome has, rather some vast expanses of mudflats instead.  It is popular none-the-less and while I did get a spot in a central caravan park, it was my good luck, as it soon was filled.  John & Choi-Chu, who I'd met in the Northern Territory last year informed me they were now working in Derby and we soon got together, having fish & chips at the Dinner Tree at sunset.  The Dinner Tree is a large boab tree at the edge of the mudflats and apparently was a popular lunch spot in the early days, when cattle driven to Derby were grazed in the area until they could be loaded on ships.  Boab trees abound in the Derby area and are strange trees indeed!  Their age is difficult (impossible?) to determine, as they don't have normal growth rings and some guesses put the larger ones at up to 1,500 years old.  One such venerable tree has a hollow centre with a narrow opening in the trunk, and is called "The Prison Tree" as it was used to store prisoners being transported on overnight stopovers.  Boab trees are protected in Derby, thus any development must preserve existing trees, giving the streets some interesting twists & turns! 

Derby has boab trees along the centre of its main street, has an interesting Museum and also the wharf is an interesting visit:  It is often lined with people with crab nets, hoping for a feed of mud crabs (and not often disappointed, from those I talked to).  A few kilometres out of town is the Mowanjum Art Studio, with an excellent video on Aboriginal culture, Aboriginal paintings and boab seeds with Aboriginal scenes carved on them.  As regards the latter, boab seeds are around 25 cm long and have a hard outer shell:  Male Aboriginals carve art on them while Aboriginal women paint scenes.

Once again I was in luck to be in Derby for The Mud Crab Races, the last of three races held each year - one would be remiss in not attending, and we weren't!  You are "given" a mud crab, which you then name (which is written in white on the shell), and in return, "donate" a minimum of $10.00.  There are ten races of ten crabs each, the two winners of each race set aside to run in the Grand Final, which then determines the first, second & third  place prizes.  The "caller" is an entertainer extraordinaire, one to whom 'political correctness' has yet to arrive.  The crabs are placed in the centre of a ~3 metre ring and the first two to reach the edge are set aside:  The losers go into the cooking pot!  None of us had a win or place, but we all had lots of fun!  The races were followed by a BBQ, which included a half mud crab.  A great local, fun-filled event!  Following this, we then went to a birthday party for friends of John & Choi, so it really was a party nite!

A trip out to photograph boab trees the following day was organised by a photographer friend, commencing with lunch (what a civilised group they are!) at the Prison Tree.   We then traveled over the mudflats (they are normally quite dry, only getting covered in the extremely high tides)  to some rather amazing and different places.   Our final stop was at the site of an old mission (near a trinity of boab trees) and the area was littered with old cars & other bits of machinery.  The old cars made an interesting inclusion in some of the photos of boab trees.  Driving back to Derby over miles of mud flats ended our very interesting day.   John & Choi insisted on tea (she is a great cook!), so my last evening  was spent with them - they certainly made my stop in Derby a special part of my journey with their hospitality.  As I was rather sadly driving out the following morning, a vehicle waiting to turn out onto the main street had  John's smiling face behind the wheel - reminding me of special treasures of Derby they'd introduced to me and then I wasn't so sad!