Derby – ugh

We arrived in Derby on Sunday and spent the day unpacking the car and repacking the van.  Everything was covered in red dust and had to be washed or wiped.  The washing machine got a solid workout too – we think we did about a dozen loads and even so, many of our clothes are still a dull browny red colour.  It might take a few washes and/or a good soak in Napisan to get things back to looking clean although we suspect that some things will never be the same.

The car was booked in for the Monday and we were annoyed to be told at 4.30pm that afternoon that it was going to take the following day as well.   We’re not sure why it took so long.  All they had to do was drain the tank, take it out, weld a couple spots and put it back.  We had been hoping to leave the following day because Derby is pretty crap and there isn’t much to, especially without a car.

So, we were stuck there for another day and took the opportunity to do more washing and go for a bike ride.  That was when we discovered the sneaky, evil, extra sharp ‘Thorns of Derby’.  They should have their own horror movie.  If you ride even a centimetre off the concrete or bitumen these thorns attack your bike tyres in plague like numbers, digging in and sticking like glue.  Overall, between our three bikes we had 9 punctures across all six tyres.   That extra day in Derby was spent dismantling and repairing bicycles.  Thrilling stuff!

As we wandered around the caravan park we were amazed to see an albino peacock walking through the grounds...

 

We finally got the car back, packed up and prepared to leave the next day.  We did go to the jetty to see a nice sunset though - that is something they've got ;-)

We had stowed everything away and were about to hitch up the van the following morning when Jenny double checked under the car and discovered that the fuel tank was STILL LEAKING!! 

We unpacked again and Jenny took the car back to the mechanic, making it clear that the car had better be returned to us that day.  One great thing to come out of this additional delay was that we crossed paths with our friends Kate and Rod who are also doing a lap but in the opposite direction.  We had been keeping in touch when we had phone reception and that morning Kate sent a message saying “We have arrived in Derby, where are you?”  I left her a return message but she realised that we were in the same caravan park when she saw Ben ride his bike past their site.  She called him over and after he got over his surprise, he showed her where we were parked, a 2 min walk away.  

Thankfully the car was repaired properly this time and we got it back at 6pm that night.  We packed up again and left the next morning, stopping off on the way out of town to visit the Norval Gallery with Kate and Rod.  The gallery belongs to Aboriginal Artist, Mark Norval, who is brilliant.  There were many pieces in the gallery that we loved and Mark himself is happy to chat.  He gave Ben a Tiger Shark tooth that was pretty special.

We said farewell to Kate and Rod and headed out of town for the next leg of our journey.  As we left, we felt like we were starting a new phase of our journey.  The epic Gibb River Road adventure was done, the tent was cleaned and packed away (hopefully for a long time) and we were back in the van for the foreseeable future, heading towards Darwin with lots of great things to see on the way.