26th May 2010 - Broome to Derby

Distance travelled: 220

Cumulative distance: 9031

I replaced the foam filter in my air intake which had 10,000kms of grot lodged in it. This should improve the performance of the bike and fuel consumption. Left Broome at 9am with much waving etc from Flynn and Jarrah. It was very warm and humid and just as we were leaving the outskirts of Broome it started to rain so we decided to don our wet weather gear. It was like riding in a sauna bath. This is very unseasonable weather according to the locals as it should be dry, low humidity and cool in the evenings at this time of year. According to the bureau of meteorology it seems to be raining over most of Australia right now which is great for the farmers but not that flash for Colin and I. It rained off and on all the way to Derby. The scenery on the way was fairly nondescript so I won't describe it. Derby is a one horse town whose main claim to fame is that it has the biggest tides in Australia. We booked into our cabin in the West Kimberley Lodge caravan park (no camping in wet weather) which had the setup of a 1950's southern USA trailer park. It was actually great value and had everything we wanted. We took a stroll down the main drag to the Tourist Information centre to find out about the weather situation on the Gibb River road. We were told that the Durack river was 700mm deep which is too much for our bikes. The road to Windjana gorge and Tunnel Creek might be opened the next day if there was no more rain. On the way we visited an old gaol built in 1906 to house aboriginal inmates which were manly cattle duffers. We also saw a hollow Boab tree which looked like it too was used as a lockup. The walk to the Tourist Centre nearly killed us in the heat so we stopped in a pub for a cool beer and a bit of aircon. The restuarant in the pub didn't look too inviting so we decided to go to Woolworths near the caravan park and buy something for dinner. We had a great barbecue at the caravan park washed down with a bottle of rough red. We made a valiant attempt to get our blog up to date but are still a few days short. During the night the rain started again and put the kybosh on our plans for the Gibb River road.