Smash up on the road to Derby

So after nearly two weeks in Broome, Josh returned from the east coast once again to recommence our journey.  Broome had been fun and the kids had met some girls from Sydney who were traveling our way and they hoped that we would meet again somewhere along the road. 

Farewell to Broome, and Derby here we come. The distance between Broome and Derby is not great and our plan was to overnight in Derby, leave the caravan and then head down the Gibb River Road for a few hundred km to Windjana Gorge equipped with our tent and plenty of drinking water.  

Not long after our departure from Broome we were hearing reports of a terrible road accident via our UHF radio.  Two road trains had collided on a single-lane bridge.  Early on, we thought it had occurred just outside of Broome about 9am and we had managed to get beyond it.  However, as the morning got later, we discovered the accident had occurred 80km outside of Derby toward Broome - territory we had not yet covered.  It was clear we would be delayed.  As we approached a huge plume of black smoke was billowing into the sky.  

There were a few choppers flying toward and away from the smoke and we were hoping no one had been injured. It was now nearly midday and we joined a long line of traffic on the south side of the collision.  We wandered forward on foot to take a more thorough inspection.  It appeared that the south-bound road train had misjudged the position of the oncoming semi and entered a single-lane bridge too soon.  On collision they had burst into flames, and most of the live cattle had been burnt quite badly. The choppers had flown in to provide ammunition and firearms to put some of the beasts out of their misery.  The remainder had been released into the surrounding countryside - so there are now some very hungry middle class in the Middle East as a result.  Josh offered medical assistance, but according to a police officer on site the drivers had been moved already and, fortunately, and miraculously, had only sustained minor injuries.

The same officer advised us that we should turn back to Broome as the road was unlikely to be reopened until the following morning with the clean up operation and an engineer from Derby coming to inspect the structural integrity of the bridge for heavy traffic.  Instead of returning to Broome we decided to follow the lead of several other caravaners and turn off the road onto a flat paddock which was fast becoming a makeshift camp.  And there it was we spent the night.  

Trace and Rubes decided to make use of the time and bake a butter cake, Jem got busy with some Lego, we lent a frisbee to some French tourist trying to throw a plastic plate around. Rubes and I played some soccer and we donated some cake and water to a woman on her way home to Derby who had no supplies in her car. I had a chat with some Aborigines who came from out of nowhere, who told me that this whole area including our makeshift camp was under several metres of water during the wet season.  It was then not only a popular spot with water skiers, but also frequented by estuarine crocodiles. Hard to imagine. 

By and large an uneventful night, and the road was reopened in the early hours of the morning. We set off fairly early, and with only 80km to cover we arrived in Derby by 10am, plenty of time to have a look around and get our camping gear ready for the Gibb River Road. 

Once in Derby we headed to the information centre for a clearer picture of Derby’s sites and those in the direction we were headed.  The information centre had a small collection of local art pieces and it was the carved boab nuts that caught Trace’s attention. Quite a few were of excellent quality and Rubes and Trace got busy choosing which to acquire. A trip down to the Derby jetty followed by a fairly good lunch of local fish and chips and we set off to look at the Big Boab, a huge hollowed out boab tree that had been used years ago as a lock up.  

The Australian boab is thought to have originated from plant material washed to the shores of north-west WA from Madagascar around 190 million years ago.  These amazing trees are a striking feature of the landscape of northern WA which we had first noticed south of Broome.  Not only a beautiful, unusual tree in its appearance, it is a source of food and medicine and its hollow trunk can store significant volumes of water after rain.  It is fire and drought resistance and some of the large trees are thought to be thousands of years old.