We made it to Fitzroy Crossing at about 2.45pm and secured ourselves the last unofficial powered site hidden in a corner up the back of the park. We quickly unhitched and plugged in the power before heading off to catch the 4pm Geiki Gorge boat tour along the Fitzroy River.

The colours at that time of day were just beautiful. As we made our way up and back down the river, we saw some amazing rock surfaces – a colourful reminder of the areas ancient past. As the sun was setting, the colours of the rock walls turned a deeper red and reflected perfectly oof the glass-like water. We even managed to see a cros floating past us plus a couple of agile wallabies – a very aptly named local animal!

We followed our caravan park’s mini bus on the way back to camp. For those of you who don’t know Fitzroy Crossing, there are a few single lane bridges along the main road – I had forgotten this fact so at one point when the mini bus in front of me pulled over I thought the driver was letting me pass because he was going so slowly. Turns out of course, that he’d pulled over to let other cars coming towards us cross the single lane bridge.

I was so embarassed that rather than turn into our caravan park driveway with the bus now following behind, I went straight past and did a U-turn further down the road before coming back – I didn’t want the bus to see who we were and think ‘what a stupid driver’ – the kids thought all of this was hilarious.

I had plans for us to be on the road by 9am the next morning so we could make the drive to Derby and then Broome. We were all dawdling along as Master14 was off at the little boys room and Miss6 found herself a puppy to play with. I soon realised it was 8.47 but we managed to pack in record time and get on the road by 9.07!

We made one final stop for fuel and to take in the lush green grass on the main road before it was back on the freeway to Derby. We made sure we took a photo of the road sign at the other end of the Gibb River Road before stopping to check out the boab prison tree.

I was saddened to learn that (innocent) Aboriginal people were captured and forced to work on pearling ships and that the prison tree was often used to hold them on the journey to the coast – another shameful example of our past and there were many others reading the information there with us that were angered or saddened by the stories of the past also.

After taking in the enormity and emotional history of the tree we headed to the Information Centre for some lunch and to grab some postcards and Gibb River souvenirs Back on the road to make our way to Broome where we hoped to swap red dirt for sand and possibly swap some of the intense adventure of the Kimberley for some relaxation by the coast.