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!
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