Tag Archives: fun

Cape Conran – Day Three

Posted on by

Up early again on the last day and it was once again pretty cold on the water. Once again there was a line up at the boat ramp. I went down to see if anyone needed help in an effort to get us going a bit faster. The answer was that everyone did. Quite amazing how many people were putting their boats in danger, but anyway. We soon got underway and went back to the gummy shark place. There wasn’t anything for a while until BANG I locked up on something large. Unfortunately it stuck itself to the bottom and refused to budge, as I slowly dragged it up, I was pretty sure it was a skate. Well, I will take a bit of bit of action and a free knot/drag test, so I got it to the surface and got my gear back, before sending it on its way.

The amusing story for this was that I managed to get a small live baitfish for bait. Dad managed to get a live crab. We put both down there to see who could attract the gummy. After a while I couldn’t feel my fish moving, so I wound up to see what had happened and the crab was eating him! Aside from getting a massive tangle, he had taken my baitfish’s head clean off.

After that we went to the flathead spot. All of a sudden I was on fire. I pulled up about 5-6 flathead in a row, Dad didn’t manage any and the skipper had one or two. I used Dad’s old joke against him, asking if he needed me to show him how to hold his rod. Soon we went back to the mark and things got a bit quiet. It seemed it was quite difficult to figure out how to drift. The next move yielded great results, we were taking them up very regularly. I got my first double header, unfortunately the second flathead managed to wrap his tail around the braid so badly I gave up on getting it apart, and had to retie up during a gold 5 minutes of fishing.


Notice the braid wrapped around his tail, very annoying

We only had a few hours to fish, as we were out by 1pm so we could get on the road back home. I did manage to get a Red Butterfly Gurnard fish, who wrapped himself around Dad’s gear. I was a bit disappointing when I got him to the surface, as I thought he was going to be a monster, but actually I was dragging an extra sinker as well.

Caught:

A bit hard to say. I think I likely got around 15 flathead and the gurnard. The skipper got one gurnard too, probably 10 flathead. He got a few thumpers, I didn’t manage to get a real “photo flathead”. Dad got a bit less than him I think. All in all it was similiar fish than the day before, but it much less time. Minus the Gummy of course.

And that was it from Cape Conran, but I certainly would be keen to go back! Great fun.

Long Weekend in Lake Tyres

Posted on by

So I have officially moved to Victoria. We had a few days off so we asked my parents what their plans were. They were camping at Lake Tyres for several nights, so we decided to head down. I even managed to get my sister and her partner down as well, it was sort of an impromptu family camping trip.

We got down there Saturday and set up. Quite an amusing moment when we realised that we had never set up the outer on our tent before! You don’t really need it when camping in the dry season of Kakadu. Summer in Victoria is a bit different, you never know when it might rain. I have to say the tent looked rather new.

Had some fun on the beach the first day. It has been a long time since I have swum in the surf, something I really love. It was great to be among the waves again.

The next day Dad and I decided to do some land based fishing in the hopes of getting a flathead or two. He used bait, I tried my smaller soft plastics. He got a few bites, but we didn’t get anything. It was a shame we didn’t have more time, as we mostly spent it driving around and finding a few really cool locations.

Greenant day trip in the wet season

Posted on by

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

Claire’s Birthday Broome Trip

Posted on by

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

Rivers Fiji Kayak Trip

Posted on by

This site is generally a site for all of my Australian adventures, but how can I resist writing about one of the best things I have ever done?

Claire and I went to Fiji in August of 2011 and it was fun, as most overseas trips are. The highlight was definitely the Kayak trip we took. They take you into a village, participate in the kava ceremony, it is fun. Then the kayaking down the rapids begins.

The difficulty was perfect, everyone stacked once or twice, very challenging but nothing dangerous. The scenery was amazing, we passed waterfall after waterfall, huge tropical forests on large hills, passing some villages where they lived with a blend of modernity yet still sustenance farming to a reasonable degree.

After the kayaking was done we took a motorized boat the rest of the way, it started pouring rain, but it was a warm rain, and I was loving every minute of it.

 


Claire in action


Me easily dealing with things


Waterfall we stopped at