Derby

Derby, sitting on King Sound, is the departure point for tours to the Horizontal Falls and Buccaneer Archipelego and is the western terminus to the Gibb River Road. It specializes in the spectacular Boab tree, no other plant is more symbolic of the Kimberley than it. The boab greets you with their immense swollen trunks of various shapes and it cuts a striking silhouette against the sky. Derby is also famous for the colossal tides of King's Sound, sometimes changing 10 meters every six hours. We took a tour through the Kimberley School of the Air. Went to The Norval Gallery , set up by the artist Mark Norval, an exciting gallery in an old tin shed and features striking art work. Mark is an enthusiastic supporter of local Aboriginal artists and fights hard to generate funding for the many health initiatives in the Kimberley. In his book is a verse -
" Every race of people has a culture to follow. If you lose culture you are floating you are lost ".
Visited Mowanjum Aboriginal Art and Culture Centre - 100% Aboriginal owned, not for profit organisation which provides employment and income to many community members through the sale of art. Donny Woolagoodja was a driving force behind the resurgence of art at Mowanjum and was responsible for the design of the 35 meter high Wandjina man in the opening ceremony at the Sydney Olympic games. Donny was allowed to take someone there and he chose to take Mark Norval. We looked at the Old Derby Gaol and the 1500 year old Boab Prison Tree which are sad reminders of man's inhumanity to man -namely white man against the Aboriginal people. The Aboriginal prisoners were chained up here whilst on their way to the Derby goal. We went to the cemetery where in times gone by the Aboriginal people were buried over the back in unmarked graves , so different from the tomb stones above the grave sites of the white people. Whilst in Derby we decided to take a trip to the Horizontal Falls and to the three national parks with stunning gorges , once part of a western 'great barrier reef' in the Devonian era, 350 million years ago. These three parks are Windjana George, Tunnel Creek and Geikie Gorge.Read more