Fitzroy Crossing

Hey all,

After a marathon drive yesterday, one of the longest we have done in a day - all 400 kms - we arrived at the Fitzroy River Lodge Caravan Park. Fitzroy Crossing is small - but we definitely feel we are in the Kimberlies now. Even coming from Broome where it's also the Kimberlies this just feels different somehow. 

As we travelled between Broome and here we found the scenery was really green with lots of new growth coming through. Made us wonder if it had been raining (we found out later it hadn't.) 

One thing I forgot to mention in my last post was something Riley did. He took a big step. Having been in Broome for as many weeks as we were we got to know some people as I mentioned in my last post. One of these people was the groundskeeper, Bevan. A really nice guy. Riley approached him asking if there was any work he could do in the park.  He had seen a fishing knife he REALLY wanted and he was determined to work for the money. He was nervous about approaching Bevan but took the plunge - and got the job. He came running back to the caravan to tell us Bevan had 'employed him' to catch the two free roaming chickens and put them in the coop, AND he would pay him five dollars for the honor. Riley thought this was the best sort of job in the world. Two hours later he had changed his mind lol. He was hot and sweaty and the second chicken - the first had been caught relatively easy and put in the pen - was being a real pain. She wouldn't let herself be caught. Bevan checked in with him around mid-afternoon and seeing he was having a lot of trouble upped the stakes to ten dollars. This made Riley more determined than ever. 

He finally caught the errant chicken later when it had become dark. He got his ten bucks. Bevan was away for a few days but said to Riley to catch him again on the Sunday and he would have a think between now and then what else he could set him up with. In the end he scored a couple more jobs - raking leaves, helping clean out the bins etc. All in all between the jobs Riley did for us over the week and with 22 dollars from Bevan he got his fishing knife. Now he can't wait to get more 'work' in Darwin lol.


Anyway back to Fitzroy Crossing. It's a tiny town, hot (and yet not as hot especially at night as Broome) and is filled with a real cross section of people. Today we met yet another group of French tourists. There are a lot out there... two guys and two girls who are travelling for a year around Australia and they too look like they want to come back to Australia to live. Seems to be a lot of that going around. They are heading toward Darwin like us and we hope we bump into them again. They were lovely.

Some photos below of our short yet sweet stay here. 

 We stopped at a roadhouse between the trip from Broome to here to stretch our legs and top up on fuel - The Willare Bridge Roadhouse - and I saw this gathering of Japanese tourists. They were giggling and laughing as they tried to squeeze in together for a picture and so I couldn't resist snapping a pic of them. Then I saw that above them was a km signpost. We are now 2240 kms from Perth. Wow.

 

 We pulled in off the side of the road - just for a pit stop - and discovered this ENORMOUS tree. This thing looked like three trees joined together and it was hollow. The guys had fun climbing in and out and checking it out.

 This is what I love about the drives from town to town. You have these long, long stretches of nothing then all of a sudden a hill or two pops up in front of you. Here we were about 150kms out of Fitzroy Crossing. These are the Erskine Ranges.

 The Fitzroy Bridge Loge Caravan Park. This place is as neat as a pin and one of the biggest caravan parks we've seen, over 50 acres all in all (though obviously not ALL for the caravans lol.) I give this place an 8 out of ten. The amenities are on the top of a big hill which is a pain when you're lugging gear up to shower or to go to the loos, but for cleanliness, cost and overall look - it rates its four stars. This is Riley ready to go jump in the pool. It was HOT!

 The caravan park pool. Riley was in the water for about two seconds when the lady on the left challenged him to a water fight lol. She ballised when he got a little boisterous lol.

 Another shot of the pool - heaven on a hot afternoon.

 We travelled 18k's out of town today to go and see the Geikie Gorge National Park. There's a few trails you can follow here - but this shot is of the Fitzroy River that runs though the national park. The boat on the right (in the background) is used for the one hour tours down the river.

Riley peeking out from behind a tree he climbed at the sandbar we found at the end of a track at the national park.

The Fitzroy River crossing though the national park. We stayed for a few hours here, it was so nice. We decided not to take a tour down the river to see the gorge as A. it was expensive... and B. well, we have a boat of our own. We came unstuck though as we couldn't actually LAUNCH the boat from anywhere lol. The only ramp to put the boat in the water was so steep and we had no way of getting it down there without tearing up the bottom of the boat. It wasn't through lack of trying though. We checked out numerous tracks and nope... not happening. So we went without and made do by swimming in the river instead. Only thing is - we read this AFTER everyone had a swim (although you are always aware of crocs in both salt and fresh water especially up here)... Swimming is at your own risk. Beware fresh water crocodiles and avoid drinking the water. Ooooh.....

Mason fossiking ....

I've never seen a red dragonfly before.. so pretty.

All the kids (and Chris too eventually) had fun searching for dropped lures that unsuspecting fishermen (and women) had lost through snags etc.

Jake comes up trumps! One more lure to add to the pile. (Chris thinks this is brilliant .. he thinks its like finding 10 dollar notes lol.)

Another shot of the river from a different perspective - this one from the outskirts of town.

Wallabies galore out here. We had kangaroos shooting across the tracks that we drove through and these cuties are here at the caravan park. I like this one - he looks as though he thinks he's hiding and can't be seen.

At first I thought this was a 28 but I don't think so. Whatever it is, the trees here are full of these - these and these REALLY noisy red-faced cockatoos. 

So, that's it again from me. Tomorrow we head for Halls Creek. Looking forward to being on the road again though we only landed here yesterday. At least the trip this time between here and there is not so long - only 290 ks. No wonder we are going through the petrol at a great rate. Hoi! 

Bye for now
Carolyn XX