Days 350 – Fitzroy Crossing, WA (29 August)

Sunday brings another early morning and the promise of another hot day.  Packed and ready to leave the Mary Pool free camp to discover we had a flat battery.  Our portable fridge drains the battery which it shouldn’t as we have a cut out switch attached to the portable fridge that stops this but for some reason it doesn’t work.  We also have a heavy duty battery but that doesn’t help either.  Anyway no problem we have a power pack battery charger that will do it and once we knew we were going to free camp John set it up to charge through the cigarette lighter on route (he was confident it was fully charged but this would be extra backup).  But alas the power pack battery charger didn’t not want to know – whilst it showed a charge it wasn’t enough to turn the engine.  So after John had his grumble about free camps and why we shouldn’t do them he was ready to charge the power pack in the van by a 12 volt.   I figured this would take ages and suggested we should go ask if any campers have charge leads or similar. Why don’t guys think of this.  My job - so the first couple I talk to, yeah they have jumper leads and the guy (numberplate read Frogs – didn’t ask) drove over to us in this car and we were started in minutes.  The 12 volt charge we would still be waiting for!  So off we trek to Fitzroy Crossing about 180kms west.   An uneventful drive thank goodness and into a very nice well laid out green caravan park with clean amenities.  Not expecting this it in this town.  It was hot when we got here so quickly set up and spent sometime in the pool cooling off.  The pool was well shaded and was icy cold and so what was needed. Once it cooled down we took Coco for a walk along the Fitzroy River – a very dry riverbed at the moment but when this river floods it is one of the largest rivers in the world. “Record floods occurred in 1983, 1986 and 2002 with approximately 13 metres of water over the old concrete crossing. The flow rate down the 15 kilometre wide flood plain at Fitzroy was estimated to be 30,000 cubic metres per second. In flood, it is probably the largest river in Australia.”  Fitzroy Crossing is 2524kms north of Perth and lies on the banks of the Fitzroy River!  It covers a catchment of 90,000 square kilometres.  “In 1935 Fitzroy got its first bridge, a low level concrete structure.  However during the wet season this bridge could be closed for months and intrepid travellers were treated to the experience of a flying fox which operated 200 metres south of the bridge.  When a new bridge was built in 1974, the focus of the town grew away from the original site.  Fitzroy Crossing is one the fastest growing town sites in the Kimberley due to Aboriginal resettlement, mining and tourism”.