We didn't need to rush this morning as we were booked into the Birdwood Downs Station about 130 klms down the road so we did the walk into Windjana Gorge.
It is another beautiful wide open gorge that has a short walk into it. The water is full of fresh water crocs so they do not allow swimming and it was a little murky in places so not overly inviting.
We were lucky enough to see a little croc sunning itself on the river bank.
Once we finished the walk we slowly packed up and drove the 20 or klms out on the very rough back to the Gibb River Road.
The main road now turns to bitumen for the remaining 120 klms all the way to Derby, so we aired our tyres back up to highway pressures along with a heap of other delighted people.
As soon as we got back to highway speeds the caravan was not liking it at all. It was wobbling all over the place so I pulled over to double check everything.
Everything seemed to be as you would expect but the shock absorbers on the caravan and 4wd for that matter were still very hot from the rough road back out to the main road. When they are very hot they do not work as they should and do not control the weight of the vehicle they are supposed to control. Plus with our new suspension in the 4wd, it makes the van sit a bit too high at the front which also upsets the balance a little. We haven't really had to opportunity to experience any of this because we have been on very rough gravel roads for the last 3 weeks and driving quite slow, or at least not at highway speeds.
However as we drove along on the smooth bitumen the shock absorbers were slowly cooling down and regain their ability to control the weight of the van which made it a lot better.
We arrived at the Cattle station and set up camp. Birdwood Downs is owned by the same people that won the Mount Elizabeth Station amongst a few others as it turns out. It is the Burton Family. So all the Beef you buy at these stations is called Burton Beef.
After setting up camp we went straight into Derby for a look and to empty and clean our toilet cassettes. Which was much needed as there are no dump points along the gibb river road to do this.
Derby at first impression was not an overly impressive town.
We ran into the people that I fixed their caravan back at the other cattle station and they were still grateful that the welding job I did was still working!
We were both craving hot chips so we found the only place that had them, a kebab shop and went grabbed some hot chips and a kebab!
Derby has a woolworths so we popped in there and did a much needed grocery shop.
Back at camp we loaded our food into the van and spent the rest of the day relaxing, or what was left of it.
Of course we watched the footy, had tea and went to bed!!