Our last day on the dirt! We went for an early hike up Windjana Gorge to check out the fossils and all the freshwater crocs (best freshie spotting location in Australia apparently). Really cool spot and well worth visiting. Came across one of the rudest people on the whole trip while looking at the crocs. We were standing about 4m from a cute little freshie quietly checking him out and this fat Aussie bloke walked up, loudly complained how far you have to go to see crocs, then walked straight in front of us and started taking photos of the croc, almost stepping on it he was so close! We both silently urged the croc to lash out and take a chunk out of his leg but were disappointed.
Headed off up the brutal road and back onto the GRR. Pretty soon the dirt gave way to tarmac and we were in Derby. For some reason we thought Derby would be exotic and cool but it's really not much to see at all apart from the massive 11m tides! We parked up under a tree and did a whole lot of admin, checking our backlogged texts and voicemails (ok I had about 3), calling tyre places in Broome, etc. Drove back to the jetty to see the result of the high tide and I have to admit it was pretty impressive!
We headed out of town but weren't planning on going all the way to Broome. We camped up about halfway at a rest stop that allowed 24 hour camping (a pretty typical thing in the outback). I had flashbacks to our family trip around Australia watching a family of 5 setting up their camper trailer. I wasn't impressed. If I recall correctly we had our routine down to about 6 minutes flat and these guys were all over the shop. One of the coolest things about this place (which is really a patch of dirt with picnic tables) was the roadtrains going past at night. They looked amazing with 3 or 4 trailers of red running lights on the side. Like I said, it's lonely in the bush!
