Category Archives: The Best!

Success in the Harbour!

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A blind squirrel will eventually find some nuts!! Smashed it, at least, smashed it for me. The day started out badly with jprbeard not showing up at my place, I waited 30 odd minutes, but he wasn’t returning phone calls or texts… (hope he just slept it and it a bit sheepish, as I still haven’t heard back) so I went to Palmertson boat ramp and grabbed one of the land fisherman to give me a hand launching, and thought I might as well take him for the ride. He got a jack 45cm but had to get out at 11am and i wanted to fish through until 2. As the low rolled over I had scouted a mud bank I liked the look off… boom! Got a great threadie, netted him by myself easily. About 20 minutes later I surprised myself (wasn’t near a snake or drain, just a mud bank) by hitting a good barra! He fought like all hell, look a crap load of line off me (it was pretty loose as there weren’t any rocks around) but I got him to the boat. The netting by myself this time was a disaster, he managed to wrap himself in my line haha, was lucky I got him in the end. But I did!

Got:
Darren: 45cm Mangrove Jack
Me: 72cm (from tip of tail) Threadfin Salmon & 66cm Barra

Story of the trip:
Well it’s the last trip for 5 weeks for me (holidays) and I haven’t caught a nice keeper since the the run off so pretty stoked with that.

Boat problems:
NOTHING!!!!!!!!!
Looks like everything is coming up milhouse

Snap
3 snaps for celebrate the end of the year:

Camping in South Eastern Kakadu

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An amazing trip. One of those trips where everything goes according to plan, the weather was nice, the locations were great, more than a few laughs.

First Claire and I went down to Garnamarr and set up camp. We didn’t burn any wood on the first night as it was pretty warm. The stars were just amazing. We had both been working pretty hard and hadn’t been out in a while, it felt like we were on holidays.

The next morning we headed to Twin Falls. The river crossing was great fun. It is paved, so not as scary as it looks. When you get there, you then take a boat. The indigenous guide/captain was really interesting, he told us a few stories, what the land means and so forth. I found it interesting that all indigenous cultures across Australia believe that a serpent created the earth. Anyway – when we got there, wow! It was paradise on earth. Beach, vegetation, escarpment, rock pools, still a trickle of a waterfall…


Just a real shame that it is now closed for swimming. So we headed to Jim Jim Falls.

Jim Jim wasn’t flowing at this time of year. The walk was interesting… the distance is quite short, but it takes forever, as you need to jump from large rock to large rock to get there. The water was colder than I expected, and the water right at the base of the fall (pictured) was freezing!! Who would have thought?

There were a lot of people there, it is clearly a popular place for guides. It was great, but it still amazes me that Maguk gets so little attention in comparison. After a swim, a packed lunch, and an even longer trip back, (tried to take a shortcut, that was my first mistake) we headed back to camp.

The stars were even brighter than the night before, if I had any skill as a photographer I would have tried to take a photo. We lit a fire for cooking and also to keep the midgees away. Nothing better than having a few beers around a campfire. We stayed up late before packing up and heading home.

 


On the trail


The River Crossing

Claire’s Birthday Broome Trip

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So we decided to fly into Broome for a week as Claire was turning 30. We decided there were a few cool places we wanted to explore, so we hired a Grand Vitara. This was before we owned one, it had been on my mind for a while, so we figured that hiring one would be a good test. Despite Broome Broome (best name for a care hire place) restricting a 3 door Grand Vitara from going to places that the Rav3 could go, which made my soul die a little on the inside, they treated us pretty good and the car certainly rocked.

There were so many great places to see down pretty interesting roads. The pearl farm, which wasn’t that good apart from the drive, the dinosaur footprints, Echo Beach resort, it was all really interesting. Completely random, Triple J’s hottest 100 of the past 20 years was on, so you’ve got that, an awesome car, loads of great tracks and destinations… it was great fun.

I think Claire liked the sunset camel trip the best, my favourite bit was Greg’s Astronomy tour.


The rock colour was amazing


Claire being arty


Camel trip

Tiwi Islands – Great Trip

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My boss decided to take us boys out on an overnight fishing trip. Writing this in 2015 it is still the best one that I have done. Got there and fished for Barra for the day with lots of success (by my standards). Stayed the light and had a quick trawl in the morning. Then went goldie hunting.

Got:
Me: 5 barra, 3 good goldies (including a double header on a handline) and tons of reddies
Boss: 6 barra, loads of goldies and reddies
Mate: 1 barra, loads of goldies and reddies

Story of the trip:
Getting smashed by the goldie school! They busted me off and I quickly swapped to my handline, as we wanted to keep feeding squid down there before the school moved on. Nothing like pulling a double header up!

 

Dugong Beach

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I think Dugong Beach is the best place I have ever been.

Seriously, I think it is #1

You need a boat there, but there is a boat you can pay that picks you up and drops you off, at least there was back in 2011.

The website doesn’t have anything other than some tables so you need to bring everything.

Be careful of the monitor lizards! They will eat anything you leave out, and tear open plastic to get in there.

The walk is something you have to do. Unlike every other walk in existence, the ‘estimate time’ and ‘difficulty’ is accurate. I didn’t bring enough water. The view is something else. You will look at my photos and think they are photoshopped… they are auto function on a cannon powershot d10


Beach site


View from the top


Me at the top