triplog

You know those picture-perfect, tropical clichés? Sunset over the ocean through the coconut palms and all that jazz? Well, that’s what we’re living with at the moment.

Bec had been told of a great pub with a beer garden overlooking the water in Karumba, on the Queensland side of the gulf. It’s a tiny fishing hamlet a mere 70kms detour off the Savannah Way, just past Normanton, and since 70 klicks is no obstacle in the pursuit of a cold beer and a good view, off we went.

We got here yesterday afternoon just in time to see the sun sink below the horizon, then turned our attention to the pub menu and more beers - when in Rome etc etc, so XXXX on tap it was, with massive slabs of steak*, copious prawns and chips. As it turns out, this place really is a fishing mecca, with a thriving prawn fishery as well - this news of course made Janes day, so lunch today was a mountain of fresh prawns, and tomorrow we’re hiring a tinny to try our luck at fishing.

* Yes, if anyone was paying attention there, I’ve cracked and fallen off the vegetarian bandwagon (to mix metaphors). And in case you’re wondering, I like a steak bloody - still mooing, if needs be

So we were crossing the East Alligator River at the Cahill crossing in Kakadu; this is an area full of crocs - big ones - and someone has already been killed here. Aside from all the normal croc warnings they post here, every now and then the National Parks people give you an ‘extreme danger’ sign, when they really, really mean it. Despite all this, a bunch of people were fishing off the levee - some of them even standing in the water, which is murky and deep right up to the edge of the crossing. We snapped the croc basking above metres from the crossing later in the afternoon.
I never did figure out whether they were locals who’d calculated the risk based on local knowledge, or clueless tourists destined to become a statistic at some point in their lives…

We spent around 5 days hanging out at Smiths Point on the Cobourg Peninsula (also called Garig Gunak Barlu National Park), which I think is the second most-furthest north point you can get to on mainland Australia (just under 11 degrees south of the equator - in comparison, the tip of Cape York is about 50kms further north).
You need to get a permit to say up here (you need to cross Arnhem Land) and I think in recent years they’ve closed sections of it off, so now there’s only the one area you can visit. On top of this, in 2005 the whole area got devastated by a cyclone - at the moment, the bush looks pretty trashed, with heaps of trees down. Still, it’s a nice area - not spectacular, but worth a visit - and would be magic if you had a boat to explore the other bays and the rest of the coastline (with some serious crocodile action up here, the canoe doesn’t cut it).

The fishing is pretty good too - true to form however, we didn’t do so well; Jane bagged a brace of squid one night, and I got a flathead and a diamond trevally another day. But we lost a lot of gear on snags and rocks - and no-one was going to risk their life retrieving it
Oh, and we met up again with Stewie and Coral - they got up there the day before we left.

We’ve spent the last few days hanging out in Kalbarri, canoeing the Murchison River and checking out the gorges. Some spectacular scenery. And we scored the best camp on the bank of the river a few kms out of town, although it was a bit of a mud-bath with all the recent rain. Shhhh, it was technically not allowed - a lot of towns ban free camping in their local area top make people fork out bucks for a caravan park - but we’re paying penance now and are in the caravan park in town - still on the river bank though. First shower for a while

Last night, Jane headed out for a fish off the sand spit near the campground and scored a brace (is that the word?) of whiting. Small but delicious. Less luck on the mission tonight - we headed out in the canoe but all we got were 2 whiting (Jane’s catch). We gave the crab nets a go too, but no luck there. The sunset and moonrise (I think it’s a full moon tonight) were awesome.

So here we are in sunny Mandurah, WA… and I got to go crabbing for the first time! We came up to spend the long weekend with John (Jane’s dad) and Jill, and Angus and Roni. So we’ve taken the boat out the last 2 days, and chased crabs - it’s awesome fun, I’m hooked. You can use nets, which we tried, but the most fun is scooping them. We just cruised the boat over the shallows, spotted them and dived overboard with the scoop to grab ‘em. We also tried extended forays just swimming around and diving to get them, but then Ango improvised and towed Jane and I behind the boat on a rope with masks on and a scoop each - when we spotted one, we’d let go and chase it. The other would stay on the rope until they saw one, then let go and the boat could circle back for the first person. Crab-hunting efficiency.

Here’s me kitted with the wetsuit sleeve and glove (very Marilyn-Manson-esque, don’t you think?) and a crab in the scoop. They get pretty big and those nippers made me nervous. Not so Ango - see below:

WA-style: Ango didn’t bother with the scoop or any other shenanigans. Just dived overboard and chased ‘em down - at one point he had 4 in his hand… and kept looking for more. Note how in the photo above, he’s not even looking at the crab trying to amputate a finger, he’s hunting for more.

Oh, and how were the crabs? Delicious.