| |
Derby lies 220km north of Broome on the King Sound. Derby is a small but spread out town that marks the western end of the exciting Gibb River Road.
| Derby Hotels Cars Tour Specials | |
Derby is known as the gateway to the gorges. Most famous for its haunting Prison Tree, it is no longer the Administration Centre for the West Kimberley, but operates as a coastal administration centre and important supply point for the surrounding Kimberley stations.
Derby developed slowly as a small town serving local tenacious pastoralists who settled in the area despite the isolation and harsh conditions.
The construction of the Gibb River Road was responsible for white man seeing and finding things never before dreamed of. Sacred sites of different aboriginal language people were discovered, as were magnificent art sites. White men and aboriginal men worked side by side, building what started as a utility road for the beef industry, and what has become one of the most iconic remote self-drive tracks in the world.
Boab trees are a symbol of the Kimberley outback.
In 1912, close by to the Derby Prison Tree, a man called Myall originally sank a bore - Myalls Bore - to a depth of 322m. The water from Myalls Bore was used to fill a 120m-long, 4.2m-wide cattle trough known to be the longest in the southern hemisphere. Many, many thousands of cattle would have drunk from that trough in the days when cattle was king of the Kimberley.
At Circular Wharf, the Derby jetty area, according if the tide is in or out, you can either walk a jetty on huge stilts, high above the mud flats and the saltwater crocodiles or be close to the brown and dangerously rapid waters stirred up by Australias biggest tides as the massive 11 metres tides rush in.
Central Derby Kimberley WA - Western Australia
|
|
Western Australia - Map of Derby Australia
|
|
