Hubbison's win the Mud Crab Derby in Derby!!

Prison Boab Tree

Lunch with the Hubbisons

Bob and Carl discussing something

Derby Jetty

Bob and Fay about to tackle Wassa's Brekky

The winners of the Mary Island Fishing Club Mud-Crub Derby!

Hubson and 'trainer' Bob Hubby

Some of the losers

The choice is made

Bob making his selection

Doing it tough in Derby

Derby Jetty at high tide

Koolan Island Iron Ore Mine

The Horizontal Waterfalls - only the smaller one was running

Ditto

And another one

Amazing mud flats around Derby

Our pilot Kate

Sunset over Derby Jetty

The Hubbisons at Derby Jetty

Well, what an amazing couple of days we've had here in this surprisingly interesting town!! It just goes to show that you don't want to listen too much to other people's opinions of a place. We'd had a couple of people give us their pretty negative thoughts on Derby so we came here not expecting much! We have all been pleasantly surprised but maybe that has something to do with winning $250 last night after our carefully selected (by Big Boss Bob) mud-crab, 'Hubson' beat 150 other mud-crabs!! We turned up at the Mary Island Fishing Club just to see what happens at such an event and before you know it Bob and Warwick had decided to get our own crab for $10 and really enter into the spirit of things. Bob made the all important decision and selected a likely looking young crab who was clambering over all the other poor crabs in the large tub. We decided on the name Hubson for short as it had to be written on his back and Warwick told them that Bob Hubby was the trainer. So we proceeded to wait anxiously for his heat - no 5. The race commentator was extremely entertaining and made the whole thing hilarious! Eventually Hubson got his chance and he was a real sprinter winning his heat easily. So of course we had to hang around then until the grand final didn't we? There were 5 more heats and then a break while they auctioned off each crab in a Calcutta. This took quite some time as you can imagine and bids went up to $350!! One fellow bid and won 8 out of the 20 crabs - must have spent about $1,000.00! So of course there was a huge build up to the grand final race and much excitemen tas the 20 crabs were released. You can imagine how excited we were and expecially Warwick when Hubson made a bee-line for Bob and took out 1st place!! We just couldn't believe it!!

Now to go back to Friday 29th - we arrived here about lunch time and were thrilled to get a lovely grassy campsite - a welcome change from red sand!! Lazed around for the afternoon. Bob walked a long way to a camping store to get a 240v camping light and met up with a personable young Irish fellow whose name is Carl. He kindly brought Bob back here and Carl stayed and talked on and on as only the Irish can do!

Saturday 30th - Went to the jetty to see the low tide and found a fuel tanker there loading fuel onto a barge which was taking it to one of the island's at the mouth of King Sound. This happens daily as there are 2 iron ore mines on islands up there - Cockatoo and Koolan. From there we went to the CWA markets , came back for a breather and then back to the jetty to see the high tide. It rose 25' in 6 hours yesterday - a king tide would be 35'! It's amazing to see this phenomonon! Then it was off to the mud crab races and I've already covered that.

Sunday 31st - set off to find the Baptist church without success and ended up at a little church - think it was called Family Church - where they welcomed us very warmly and we all felt blessed to be there. The Pastor and his wife were from Papua New Guinea.

Then it was off into the beautiful blue yonder for our flight over the Horizontal Falls and the Buccaneer Archaepeligo. Wow what an amazing flight that was!! Glorious day, fantastic scenery and very pleasant and informative young female pilot. To cap off the day we had a lovely seafood meal at a little restaurant overlooking the jetty enjoying another amazing sunset! What an incredible country we live in!

I'm not sure where next I'll be able to add to the Blog as we begin our trek along the Gibb River Road tomorrow with Windjana Gorge our first stop. We've heard varying reports about the road ranging from 'absolutely terrible to 'not as bad as people make out' so we are hoping the latter is closer to the truth!' Love to all and thanks for reading our blog! Yvonne