16 April 2013 - West Kimberley Lodge, Derby, Western Australia

Our last day in Derby has been most sedentary  The landcruiser has been and come back from the garage, admired for being in such excellent condition and for being the sought after 100 Series and we have been billed 50% more than suggested on booking. It turned out that the requirement to checkout the wheel bearings had not been accounted for when the initial estimate was given. Just as well we paid for the Broome  tour yesterday or we might be reconsidering such extravagance.

My only outing was the short walk up to the Woolworths supermarket for bread and the newspaper and a visit to the Norvel Gallery which is situated between there and the camp. Local artist Mark Norvel works out of a large shed, part of which is a rather rustic café and shop, the rest a working gallery where several young aboriginal women were working on paintings. His own work hangs about the walls, dominating work by other artists. He has won many prizes and awards for his work and most worthy of them too. His passion for the Kimberley landscape, the aboriginal people and the politics of the region are evident in his work. We were glad we had called in to the gallery.

Later in the afternoon we retreated to the pool, a rather modest affair compared to some of the lovely pools we have used over the past few weeks. Here it is an above ground Clarke Pool, the sort that can rarely be called attractive, however the water is refreshing, the yard intimate and devoid of children. In fact children are not made hugely welcome here which makes the park all the more attractive to adult travellers of a certain age.

In the pool we struck up conversation with a German couple who are travelling in a car in the opposite direction to us. They had selected Derby as a desirable destination after seeing it on the map as a seaside town, but have been rather disappointed to find this rather unattractive settlement surrounded in mudflats and mosquitoes. We all had a good laugh about that! We offered a few tips about the road ahead as they head for Darwin and they spoke about Broome, of matters that may well influence how we spend our time there. We parted company, pruned and cold, wishing each other safe journeys.