Tag Archives: darwin

Dry 2015 continues…

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Oh dear. I didn’t think that it could get much more frustrating than last week. Well… I wasn’t the skipper this week, my deckie had a much larger and nice boat than me with a 250 on the back, we hit shoal bay and given the forecast of 17 knot winds we decided to take his out. First thing we did was launch at buffalo creek and get stuck on THREE sandbanks on the way out. Then we hit shoal bay hard for zero fish.

The skipper was persisting in casting with a very old baitcaster that kept getting into birdsnests… he was joking that he every time he did his rods up he ended using the reel that didn’t work. Well it ‘not funny’ quickly when he hooked a huge fish and BANG his reel exploded, splitting on the base that connects it to the rod!

Got:
Nothing.
Maybe I’m a the human banana?

Story of the trip:
Came across a smaller croc who had thought it was a great idea to bite into a crab float. Problem was he couldn’t quite get his mouth around it, and his teeth got stuck in it. So there he was thrashing around trying to get this float out of his mouth.

Beautiful creatures, rah rah, it was actually pretty funny. Wasn’t out crab pot so we left it alone.

Boat problems:
The skippers spring on his trailer exploded when he was reversing in his driveway. Nice to know my luck extends to other people’s boats too.

Snap

Lots of work, one small barra

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Well, well. Looking at the tides I thought the harbour would be good, but ended up hitting shoal bay instead. Lots of work for this trip! Apart from the 8 hours of solid fishing for one undersized barra, other fun included:
– Motor constantly getting blocked with mud
– Electric motor problems, culminating with the foot pedal starting to smoke
– Someone’s crab pot rope wrapped around the prop
– A constant battle to keep the main battery charged (I had a back up battery for the trip home, but I wouldn’t lekkie from it)

Wasn’t all bad. I learnt a lot from the experience, shoal bay and buffalo creek boat ramp is a nice spot, and the boat handled the small chop really well. I’m sure I’ll get some results soon, though that electric motor is critical to how I fish.

Got:
Me: 1 undersized barra
Mud: Nothing

Story of the trip:
Some guys were battling a large barra. I think they were live baiting and it kept taking it and jumping out of the water. I really wanted to go over and start flicking at it, but that would have been majorly uncool. I don’t think they ever landed it, but they hooked it a few times.

Boat problems:
Need a new foot pedal. No more electric motor until I get one. And at this time of the year…

Snap

A crock getting stuck on a float

Greenant day trip in the wet season

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Much of my memorable adventures start with reading the Kakadu or Litchfield access report, find a place and calling the rangers up and asking about it. In this case I called the Litchfield rangers to ask about swimming at greenant creek. A quick google search said there was a rockpool you could swim at, the access report said the track was open, but didn’t mention anything about the swimming. What followed was a hilarious conversation with a helpful ranger handicapped by the world we live in. Basically he said:

“there isn’t anywhere that is zoned for swimming there, so I can’t tell you you can swim there. But there is a rockpool above the waterfall that people swim, I swim, and we don’t mind. You don’t have to worry about crocs but you do have to worry about flash flooding, since you’re on top of a waterfall.”

Litchfield in the wet season is generally pretty full, as you can only swim at Florence and the Buley Rockholes, and the weather is such that you really want to swim! So we decided to walk there, and were utterly amazed that we had the entire place to ourselves all day. I imagined all those other people braving the crowds… ah well!

The highlight of the walk were the enourmous golden orb spiders. We saw a few big ones, then ran into two that were just enormous, easily bigger than my hand.

Other than that, just a great day chilling out on top of Litchfield!

 


On top of the waterfall


In the rockpool

Butterfly Gorge – 22/09/13

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We decided to take our good friends Tom & Ails down to Butterfly Gorge. It is a series of rock pools in a narrow gorge with very steep and beautiful escarpment.

The 4WD trip was nice, I do love getting out on the tracks, but I have to admit I like the softer tracks more. We got there and there was barely anyone there, and that was the same for most of the day, which always makes for a good trip.

Claire and I had been there before, but it is still one of the best places to go for a swim. We entertained ourselves with a makeshift water slide down a rock, Tom being the most awkward, and Claire being the one who managed to put a large bruise on herself. Of course.

I would highly recommend everyone sees Butterfly Gorge at least once.


Me at the entrance. Gotta love crocs-n-sox


Claire and me in one of the pools

Kakadu without the Swimming

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We went to Kakadu for the night with Claire’s parents. Managed to see Ubirr, Yellow Water cruise, and Nourlangie. We stayed in the crocodile, so technically we did swim, but it was the pool – not quite the same thing.

The first night we went to Ubirr but it was very cloudy and we didn’t get a sunset. The second day we got up early and went to the Yellow Water cruise, and later went to Ubirr again, this time the sky was clear and it was a great sunset. That night was amazing as it was the night of a supermoon, which was rising directly behind the sunset.

 

 


Sunrise to the front


Supermoon behind us