Our time at Fitzroy Crossing

This post is by Bev, not a birding post, although there are some bird pics,  but is mainly for family and friends of our time at Fitzroy Crossing.

Tarunda Caravan Park – our caravan. We were originally on a concrete slab to the right but not much shade and the concrete heated up during the day and radiated the heat into the caravan so we moved it to this shadier spot.
Looking towards caravan park office and in the background on left is the IGA where we worked. During the wet season a mound of dirt is built up around the offices to protect them from the excess water.
Tarunda Caravan park -‘ off the ground’ rooms. This is so they don’t get flooded during the wet season. 





















Along the Gorge walking track there is a small detour walking between some rocky outcrops. The rock in the background with pointy top was quite thin looking side on.

A lot of the rocks had a ‘wrinkled’ appearance to them. Info from a sign re the fine lines in the rocks (right pic).

‘The veins in the rock have formed from movements in the Earth’s crust that cracked the ancient living reef. The cracks were filled by calcium precipitating out of the seawater. When the ancient reef was exposed to the air and rain, the calcium dissolved and seeped down into the fine cracks and calcite fillings.’

It never ceases to amaze me seeing trees growing out of the sides of rocks.

The Fitzroy river.  Lovely looking swimming holes.  The white on the cliff shows the level the water can get up to during the wet season. It is about 20 feet high.

Looking closely at the rocks, they looked ‘wrinkled’

This sandy area can be completely under water in the wet season. The river is on the right and this sand is about 3-4 metres above the river.

On another weekend Euan put our mattresses in the back of the car and when I finished work at 4pm on the Saturday we headed off.  About an hour towards Derby there is a free campsite with a small lake on it, Lake Ellendale.  Very nice campsite. In the morning there were quite a few birds using the lake.

Plumed Whistling Ducks feeding around the edge of the lake. There were also Grebe, Egrets,Little Black Cormorants, a variety of ducks, Sacred Kingfisher and some of the small honeyeaters had their morning bath in the lake.  A Boab tree next to where we camped.  A Great Egret and a Glossy Ibis looking for their lunch.

Brolgas, Straw-necked Ibis, Plume Whistling Ducks, Lapwing and Black-winged Stilt

We then headed south of the main northern highway to a community called Noonkanbah. The Fitzroy river winds passed here from Fitzroy Crossing and then heads back northwards. There was a road showing on the GPS that Euan wanted to go along but it did not exist. There were other roads but not the one he wanted, so we travelled northwards again on a different track towards Camballin.  On the way we passed an old dam (see photos). The dam wall and infrastructure has been damaged by the wet season floods.   

The lines you can see in the water are fresh water crocodiles. There was a family of seven crocs living here.   I was sitting near the water having my lunch watching the crocs when Euan advised that I should move back further from the water as there may be saltwater crocs in there.  Later on a local person confirmed that there has been saltwater crocs in the dam.
This looks like it was the nest that the young freshwater crocs hatched out of.
 

One weekend there was a football/basketball festival on with teams competing, training workshops for those interested in learning to play  plus rock concerts Fri/Sat nights. We could hear the concerts at the caravan park – good music.  There were groups of young aboriginal people and their families camping at the caravan park here that came from 150 – 600 klms away taking part in the weekend. It seems that it was a great weekend.  The supermarket did a roaring trade with the drink shelves needing to be refilled all the time.

We planned to finish working here around the end of November and slowly make our way down the coast to Perth, seeing what work may be available on the way.  The temperature is around 38 each day now and will be slowly getting hotter. We don’t have our air conditioner as it was shaken to death coming across the Tanami road and we are seeing if we can make it without it. Cost to replace/install would be $2,500-3,000 up here. It is usually around 11pm – midnight when the caravan cools down enough. Some nights are very noisy when the kids are roaming the streets, talking loudly or just making lots of noise after midnight to early morning. The police patrol the streets and drive through the caravan park during the night checking that all is ok.  Sometimes they tape cameras to the trees to view later on and see if anyone is lurking around. Earlier on when there were more caravans here there were some things stolen during the night – pushbike, motor scooter ( found burnt), esky, phone, washbag.  There is a problem with kids stealing the deodorant spray cans and socks from the supermarket. They spray the deodorant into the sock and sniff them.  We tried to watch that aisle when kids came into the supermarket. It seems to have reduced the number of cans being stolen.

I woke up one night (it was 3am) to a slight noise (our door rattles when opened) and when I looked out of the window to the door, there was a young male trying to open our door quietly.  I yelled out at him and he took off. It was one night I had not double checked that I had locked the door. I must has forgotten when I went to bed to lock it. I didn’t again!  

One day after work I walked down to the Fitzroy river (about 1km away). Euan had gone earlier to do a bird survey. There were some people cooling off in the river. Euan was wanting to show me Star Finches. They are not always easy to see. At first we could not find them. Euan had seem them earlier but of course they had moved. As we were about to leave a group flew into tall reeds along the edge of the riverbank. I took a couple of pictures but not that great as they kept moving, edging to a waterhole for a drink. See below.

As I only got one day off a week, we were not able to see more of the Kimberley area as we had hoped.  By the time we leave here, it may be too hot to go further north.  We will make that decision when we finish. If we do, we will leave the caravan here and just camp in the car for a couple of weeks before collecting the caravan and heading south.

While staying at Fitzroy Crossing, Euan went away for a week and would be sleeping in the car, so I needed to get some screens for the windows on the car so he could open a window at night without bugs getting in. I checked online and it would cost $190 to get two screens so I googled up how to make your own and found the info.  I bought some magnets and 2m of midge mesh total cost $45.  Made two screens and have also replaced two screens on the caravan and have left over mesh to replace other screens that need replacing.  A lot cheaper than $190.

One of my handmade screens for the side windows of the car. I used some of my own quilting material to edge them. We have them inside when travelling along the road and put them on the outside of the window when we stop to camp for the night.

I flew back to Melbourne one weekend for my niece, Lisa’s wedding.  It was great to see everyone again and a perfect day for the wedding.

Unfortunately while we were away that weekend, our caravan was broken into as we had left it at the caravan park in Fitzroy Crossing. Nothing of value taken as we had taken our valuable items with us.  Due to the problems with security at the caravan park and some other issues with the company, we decided to finish up at the end of our three months contract.  It was a shame as we enjoyed working at the supermarket and got on well with the managers and staff.

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