FITZROY CROSSING TO DERBY

We arrived at Fitzroy Crossing last Friday (22nd) and booked into The Lodge for 2 nights. It is quite a nice place with lawns, restaurant (fairly expensive), motel and caravan park. In March this year the whole area was underwater – they had photos in the reception area. Where our caravan was would have been under water, at a guess at least half way up the caravan. We were hoping to wash the car which still has all the Bungle Bungle dirt on it, but no car washing was allowed in the caravan park and there was no car wash in town. In fact, there wasn’t much of anything in town – one IGA supermarket with a very limited range of choices and really lousy looking meat. There is no butcher in town so we thought we may have to go vegetarian for a few days! One of our gas bottles died at Ngumbum Cliff and we were going to fill it but at $48 we have decided to hold off and hope it is cheaper in Derby. No chemist here so still cannot get prescriptions filled.


We went out to the old Fitzroy Crossing,

then on to Gieke Gorge and saw a crocodile on the sandbar across the river.

It is a freshwater croc and apparently salt water crocs are not known to exist in Gieke Gorge. We went for a walk through the limestone rocks which is part of an ancient Devonian reef, then down to the Fitzroy River.
[I was going to put in a picture but we have such a weak internet signal it is taking ages to put photos on, so perhaps next time].  At the car park there is a gazebo where you can book tours on the Gorge. In 2002 the flood waters were estimated to be 2m over the roof of the gazebo and in March 2011 they were estimated to be about ½ metre above the roof. We had lunch at the old Crossing Inn then decided to drive out to Leopold Downs Road to see whether we would be able to get the caravan to the RAAF Boab Quarry. On the way a rock was thrown up from a passing car and it has chipped our windscreen. We saw a very large wurlie wurlie – the largest I have seen before. The road to the Quarry camp site is way too rough for the caravan so we had to rethink our plans.

On Sunday we drove to Ellendale camp site. It is a medium size camp site only about an hour from Fitzroy Crossing. We got there pretty early but it was already half full and it filled very fast from there. It has toilets and a dump point, so that may be why so many people wanted to stop there. It was very dusty and windy but we were treated to a spectacular sunset. There are a number fires in the area and the smoke creates the best sunsets! I also saw a shooting star while we are outside watching the beautiful starry night. That is the first one I have seen so far on this trip.

On Monday we moved on to the Boab Rest Area. Between Ellendale and this place there have been, and are continuing to be, large fires - off the road a way but stretching almost as far as the eye could see. The Boab Rest area is a pretty good size and slap bang in the middle is a very large, old boab tree

The whole area has had gravel put down. There are no toilets but there are plenty of flies (although nowhere near as many as some of the other places we have camped). A lot of people must use the surrounding bush as their toilet, which is understandable, but it is a pity they haven’t learned to dig a hole and bury it! It has been very smokey late in the afternoon on Monday and we have had ash landing on the car and caravan.

This photo is taken from our caravan looking toward the road. We could hear the crackling noise of the fire but couldn’t see the flames. We were keeping an eye on wind direction because there is a large amount of scrub and high, dry, grass where we are set up. The fire would have to jump the road and it didn’t appear to be roaring through – it may well be a controlled burn (what they call a cool fire) so we didn’t think there was too much risk.

Lots of cars in and out of the rest area through the day, including tour buses. A reasonable amount of people stop for the night but there is plenty of room. Royce attempted to wash the car using a bucket of water and a brush. He probably removed the worst of it but it still looks pretty dirty and will need a good wash when we get to Derby.

We are in Derby now but because of very poor signal strength I will fill you all in on Derby in our next blog (when hopefully we have a better internet connection).

Take care everyone.