After leaving Broome we headed 220ks north to Derby, the first town in the Kimberly, and my place of birth, it also has the highest tidal variation in Australia reaching 11 to12 meters to see this best we headed out to the jetty, you can literally see the tide flowing in. I remember a few times when I was young going out boating and miss the tide and get stuck on a sandbank waiting for the tide to come back in.

Derby’s a small town of about 5000 people, a lot of the population are FIFO to the Islands where they’re mining Iron Ore, there’s a couple of tourist attractions to look at so we got on our scooter and headed out to visit the boab tree prison, its believed to be about 1500 years old. Boabs are hard to tell how old they are because as they get old they become hollow so you cant count their growth ring, this one is 14.7 meters round and is hollow in the middle which allowed it to be used as a prison.

We visited the hospital where I was born all those years ago and where I spent the night after getting flown in from Cockatoo Island when my beautiful sister Sam knocked my two front teeth out for borrowing her tea pot (I didn’t have front teeth for at least a year) I remember waking up in a room full of little aboriginal children with me the only white one, a little scary for a six year old.

We found the old swimming pool where we used to go to the inter school sports with kids from all over the Kimberly the main thing I wanted to do in Derby was find a way to get out to Cockatoo Island so after ringing every air line to try to find someone to actually land on the island and not just fly over it I had to settle for a 2 hour flight over the Buccaneer Archipelago which was pretty amazing. We met at the Derby airport (which is a lot smaller than I remember) at 7.30am for our pre flight check and to put on our life jackets just in case we crashed over the ocean, we took off at 7.45 and headed north to the horizontal falls, the huge tides in the area create the phenomenon known as the horizontal waterfalls its happens when the massive amount of water rushes through the two small gaps in the high cliffs to form the horizontal waterfalls, I remember going there by boat when I was young but I don’t think I really appreciated the magnificence of it all, its amazing the amount of water rushing out of the two bays, there was a few boat cruises down on the water (dad I thought of you while flying over them).

After circling a few times we headed out to Montgomery Reef which is about 420 square ks its best to see it at low tide where you can see the water rushing off the reef the water makes mini waterfalls all over the edge of the reef there’s a cannel that runs though the middle of the reef and there were about 5 cruise boats cruising along, I remember boating around out here and being the only boat for miles now there seems to be charter boats everywhere.

After the reef we headed for Koolan Island as we approached I couldn’t believe how much they had mined the whole top of the island is gone the town ship is no longer there it’s a bit sad really to think back and remember what was, that’s progress as they say. I remember catching the barge over from Cockatoo and having our sports day, we used to live there too but I was to young to remember that. Not far off in the distance we could see another Island and as we approached I hate to say it but I had a tear in my eye its been over thirty years since I was on Cockatoo Island but I remember it

like yesterday we approached from the airport side and flew down past the shiploader the hole in the ground is now huge, we flew over the township I could see the house we used to live in , the fence they put up on the beach to keep the sharks out is no longer there.

We flew around to the back beach and saw the other house we lived in on the cliff, I could see the pool Bondy (Alan Bond) put in at the club when he brought the Island to turn it into a tourist resort, its sad to see its now a ghost town but I’m very glad that we were some of the few who got to experience growing up in such an amazing place the memories will be with me forever.

After waving good bye to one of the best childhoods a kid could ask for we turned around and started heading back we flew over Irvine Island which they tell me might start mining as well, we flew past Strickland bay a place I remember fondly and Sam still has a scare on her finger from Ernie the Eel, past cone bay which now has a huge barramundi farm in it, you can see huge circles just floating in the water these are the sea cages for the barramundi, they produce 1800 tonnes of barramundi per year, we flew past islands we used to camp on as a kid, memories of dad waking us up at 3 or 4 in the morning to catch the out going tide, of being thrown overboard to swim to shore just watch out for the sharks.

Flying back into Derby we flew over the new prison it’s a big square with a few buildings and a great big football oval in the middle this is where Chris is playing footy today he’s playing for the Broome Pearler’s the old boys and their playing against the prisoners I think its just a low security prison lets hope so anyway

All in all it has been a grate trip down memory lane i’m so glad I had the chance to come back and I think next time we might do one of those Kimberly Cruises

Next stop Fitzroy Crossing…  now watch this video