To fish or not to fish that is the question

Here are what kept us busy over the weekend & for the few days before we headed back into Town.

The little sand bar out the front of camp on low tide.  Mullet would get land locked & make it a lot easier to target

The one outlet from the tidal lagoon above would be the exit & entry points for the schools of bait fish that would head into the safety of the lagoon to escape the predators.  

A good size mud crab scoots past headed for the mangroves

This day we decided to head to the eastern end of Honeymoon bay. A few days before on an incoming tide we had a croc sit about 200 mtrs off shore & take a good look at us for over half an hour. He was the only bit of debris that didn't drift in with the incoming tide.  I thought I would break up the routine a bit & fish at a different spot. This end of the beach was meant to be good for Mangrove Jack but all we got was the jack without the mangrove!  

We had one of our workmates from Broome flew past us in a chopper on Wednesday only 500 mtrs off shore headed to the communications tower on the far left of the photo. Turned out the Solar site had a few issues & need some manual assistance with a generator. It would have been less than 1km away from me . If only I could have helped but the fishing was far to good... Bummer 

I managed to catch my best tally of bait fish in one cast of the throw net at the mangroves to the east of the beach. I nailed about 25 of these herring but they didn't enjoy it much. After 10 minutes most where belly up in the bucket. I tried my best to keep them going & threw them back but they all floated to the surface & washed up on the beach with the incoming tide. Mullet can last several hours so I was quite surprised when this happened. I like to think I try and  fish for the future and my kids . I  hate to kill fish unnecessarily. The crabs had a feast care of my slip up.

Another impressive Boab tree in a spectacular setting.

Yet another hazard in the water. A Box jelly fish. 

I first came across one of these early in the week when I was out wading for bait in the shallows. It would have been only a foot away from my calf muscle. At first I thought it was 4 small fish swimming in a school and then I lent down for a closer look & got the hell out of the water QUICKLY. They are yet another nasty from northern Australia that can kill.

One of the aboriginal guys in town got stung as a teenager. He still has deep scars decades later.
 The water was so inviting that I almost contemplated going for a sit in the little lagoon a few days before. After that I would only go to the waters edge & no further.  

After a few casts I gave up on getting any more bait for the afternoon. The tentacles can extend for up to a meter behind them.  lucky I was up wind of the last one I had a run in with

The last mullet goes out for the day...He doesn't look to disappointed. The water in the ocean is far cooler than that in the bucket. If you hook them correctly just under the rear dorsal fin you can let them go when your finished & they will still be alive & fairly healthy despite the experience.  

Ok it was small but it was our lunch 30 minutes later & it tasted great!

Troy was the shark charmer. He has a fear of sharks & maybe they sensed it as he managed to catch quite a few while on Honeymoon

What its it? dunno but at first it put up a good fight

Generator repair 101. I was totally fished out on this particular day so I hung about camp for the afternoon. Last season Frenchy was away in Kunanurra for a few days & let the place run itself. On of the tourists had a dispute with some of the other campers and on leaving he thought he would get his own back and jam a crowbar into the generator windings to  stuff the power for the other campers. He was successful and in addition cost Les about $2000 in damage to the generator. In the end couldn't be fixed. Here we are trying to get the keyway off to allow an adaptor from the old generator to be bolted in place & then transferred onto the old motor. 

His Nephews lend a hand. It ain't going anywhere.

 After a can of Inox it still wasn't going to budge

A gas axe would have to be plan B but that would be another day. 

On the Western side of the beach we had some resident eagles. One sea eagle even came for a closer look at the bait bucket from only a few meters over head. In the end I was leaving them out any live bait that was a bit worse for ware & wouldn't survive back in the water. 

A Long tom. They are very aerobatic & try all sorts of flips & rolls out of the water in an attempt to trow the hooks

Troy with yet another shark on board

He can keep the hook. I'm not going to try & remove it!

Lucky for the sharks we had no idea how to fillet them so they all went back in the water 

Say cheese!

The barge to Darwin is looking attractive NOT!

Yep need I say more. Over the weekend we tried our best to find out as much as we could from any one who would listen as to how long we would likely be stuck it town for. One report that there was a Cyclone / tropical low building to the north of Western Australia. This wasn't exciting me at all. If this still isnt what the locals call the"WET" then what the hell is this place going to be like should a cyclone start bearing down on us. Unlikely but still possible. We are never getting the hell out of here!

 I called Geoff at Kunanurra as I knew he had his finger on the pulse having lived and worked in the area for the last 30 years. He advised us to camp out at the Carson & wait for the water level to subside. My objection was we had reliable comm's at Honeymoon be it only a pay phone that only used phone cards but not so on the Carson. Our other lifeline was the Net! We had no access to the Internet at honeymoon let alone on the banks of the carson. We managed to get on to the PC's at the community school & do a quick weather check on the Friday but that was 30 km away & I don't think it was going to start to be a regular invite. I could at least call work & the boys could do the surfing for me & be my eyes & ears.  Our only option for comms on the Carson was our sat phone that would cut out from time to time and cost a fortune to run & the battery only lasted a short time between charges. At Honeymoon I had easy access to call the cop shop, general store, council works depot, and most importantly family & friends and work. One more bonus at Honeymoon at least we could fish.

Frenchy told us a horror story of a group that got stuck in town back in May during the "DRY" season when the Gibb was closed care of unseasonal heavy rains. After 8 weeks some of the stranded chose to barge out to Wyndam at the cost of $12000 for the barge with the cost was split amongst 5 party's... A very expensive trip out of town. Turns out a week later the road reopened & the rest of the crew drove out.

One of the options that was brought to my attention should this be a worse case scenario was to catch the local supply barging to Darwin at the cost of $1800 per vehicle. Yep one fee for the car & one for the camper trailer.... $3600 to get out . To rub salt into the wounds the barge didn't take passengers so we would have to FLY out to Kununurra & THEN ON TO DARWIN.

We didn't have weeks to come to my decision as the barge would be in town Tuesday & then again in 3 weeks time so I would have to make a best guess decision ASAP. Not much change out of $5000 hhhhhmmmmmmm I say again ...... things that make you go hhmmmmmm

I love a thunder storm but .......

I spent the next few days at the phone box calling everyone & anyone trying to make a educated decision on our short term & then long term options to get out. The guys at work were very patient with my requests for info & by Monday we had enough information to indicate no more rain from Tuesday onwards. With the current forecast we would more than likely be out by the weekend.

You realise how isolated this place is when your only consistent reliable communication link to the outside world is a payhone that wont take coins & consistently rips you off when you use a phone card.

Mr French arrives... and brings more storms

Les finally showed up at camp Thursday night. News was great for him the mangoes survived the trip & he was very grateful for our efforts. The news wasn't good for us though. He had set up camp for dinner at the Carson river the evening before  & the river was on a steady rise. Our intentions where to head off in the morning & continue on the Gibb west. He told us to come into town & chase him down before we left the area and he may have some more news for us on the roads out of town. Honeymoon bay was 30 km to the east of town & the Carson was 20 km to the south of town. 100km round trip. We figured continue with our plans to leave tomorrow. 

Breakfast of champions... our final morning at Honeymoon needed to go out in style.. Pack up of camp & off to Kalumburu. We rocked up in town & found Frenchy's other place. News wasn't good. A local Aboriginal ranger tried to cross the Carson at the upper crossing & was washed down stream the night before. He flooded the engine but managed to winch out to the opposite bank & make the 20 km walk into town to get help.  We were advised to go to the local cop shop & get advice on the road conditions.

Same news again from the local Sergeant we aren't going anywhere. Information was a bit limited as they boys where nearly at the end of  a 40 hr shift. The evening before another group of locals parked on the opposite bank & swam alcohol across the river and walked it into town. Town has a 6km "dry" alcohol exclusion zone where no alcohol is permitted. 6 Arrested in the lockup & they had to stay on duty until they had all been processed & released when sober. On all accounts it had been a very messy night  

We decided to make a few detours on the way back to Honeymoon & popped into Mcgowans beach.  The camp ground was magnificent. The fishing possibility's were endless with rock, reef & beach. All definitely worth a look next time

Almost tempted to stay here for a change of scene but bugger it we had honeymoon wired & all to ourselves. 

Back at camp that evening.... time to go back to what we knew....ahhh the endless supply of free power provided you got them out early enough before the lunch time build up & the afternoon cloud over 

Frenchy told us we could use as much rain water from his house water tank at honeymoon as we needed. The ocean was to full of nasties to even consider attempting to swim as you will soon find out. I was starting to smell so I needed a shower.  Troy had some good deodorant & I suspect a blocked nose so he didn't worry about personal hygiene while on our own.

Next morning Troy woke with the sun & captured the sunrise

For today this would be as good as it gets

By mid morning this was the forecast... Storms, rain, storms & more storms. I recon even the BOM would have got this one right

Just after lunch this was the view north from camp. The realisation that more rain wasn't what we needed... Reality started to set in. 

more again.....

here it comes

No fishing today. Holding a fiberglass & carbon fiber lightning rod didn't appeal in the slightest 

nearly enclosed

And finally closure.

You know the irony of this all was we didn't get any substantial rain at Honeymoon itself. We had our buckets ready to capture what we anticipated would be a months worth of rain in a few minutes but the event never ever occurred. I could barely fill a glass up with the water that we collected from the tarp that afternoon. The light show that was put on was yet again magnificent but it didn't help our cause any.

And the storms they build.......

For the next few days this was the normal sight that greeted us from the beach looking back south.

Midweek and still no sign of Les French? When Les left it appeared as if he had turned off the water to the camp ground and on inspection of all the water tanks in the area we couldn't find any that supplied the camp ground. I had set up a bucket at the end of our tarp so we could try & save our own water for drinking but It never actually rained at Honeymoon.  We only received a few very heavy drops while the thunder & lightning surrounded us but nothing that would ever make it into the bucket.  We chose to use salt water for our washing up in the interim until Les showed up.  

A lucky cast & I managed to catch a garfish in the trow net.  Now i turn this into ...

THIS!!!!! it was a 4.5 kg, 90cm BEAST. The queeny jumped several times & left me with only a few meters of line left on the reel at which point I thought it was game over for me anticipating another bust off.  Luckily it tired enough for me to recover a few meters of line before the next run & the final haul up onto the beach.

1 fillet removed & the contense of its stomach examined. My bait was a bit worse for ware but I reckon it may have still had a pulse! The queen fish were ferocious eaters & you could see them pursuing the schools of bait fish in the shallows.  At this point you would hold onto your rod a bit firmer knowing what was likely to happen next.

That afternoon while fishing I saw off in the distance heading for the shore at a great rate of knots a long & slender fish similar in size to my queeny skipping across the water literaly on its tail for about 50 mtrs. It would have been doing over 60km/hr ... It was amazing. I would hate to have seen how big the beast was that was chasing it.
Yet another successful day fishing at Honeymoon

Reaping the rewards... Fishing at Honeymoon

The morning view from camp at Honeymoon. WOW.......

It didn't take long & Troy landed his first keeper

The smile says it all.  A good size Queen fish.

Always a good sign if it doesn't fit in the bucket

I hooked on to a beast but it bit me off. Plenty more were that one came from

Catching bait. The lessons learnt from Phil on the lawns at Home Valley now started to pay off  with an endless supply of bait around we could live here quite comfortably.. even if we only had the freezer to live out of since the fridge packed it in.

Use the biggest ones first & work your way to the bottom of the food chain..  We kept refreshing the water in the bucket so what ever we didn't use went back in at the end of the day.

Fishing day one a success! Time for a beer while the sun goes down

Exile in Kalumburu

Left or Right... We had our delivery of Mango's from Geoff in Kununurra on a mission to catch fish at Honeymoon beach with Frenchy but something didn't sit right in my stomach when i did finally turn right & head to Kalmburu and no it wasn't last nights beers!

Just prior to Drysdale river station we had our first sections of road with water pooling across them. At this point I wasn't concerned. The road was in immaculate condition and the truck was breezing through it all.

A quick bite at the station store & a chat to the local station owner gave the advice that the road is open to Kalumburu but our intended visit to the Mitchell falls wasn't going to happen as the park was now closed for the season. He also advised road crews where in the area trying to cap a section of black soil track near Theda that was causing the locals grief. Take it easy on the black soil was his advice but the rest of the road should be good as it was only just graded getting ready for the wet season. Troy grabbed a box of Pizza shapes for the drive & off to Kalumburu we headed.

only 5 minutes down the road the next storm broke. I chose to take on the station owners advice & cruised along at 40 km/h  for about 20 minutes until it passed 

The last puddle was not a drama. As we pushed on the puddles got boggier & boggier.... Hmmm the truck still pushed through without question of its ability even with tommy attached to the back

We gave a wave to the road crew who up until now had done a magnificent job on the road. We had just seen another grader firmly bogged in the mud while pushing out a spoon drain into the bush a few kilometers back.  It looked as if the crew had just dumped about 1km of red dirt capping on the black soil and the grader was having difficulty spreading it out care of all the rain in the last few hours. The track was back to one lane of redcap with pools of water on the black soil either side of the track. If it wasn't for this fresh red cap I would have surely got bogged and not been able to continue on. All this should have sent alarm bells ringing but on we pushed through despite the warning signs.

At about this point the stations ended & it turned into black fella country. No more road works. Only the Tourist dollar past this point no more live stock to export hence no value in maintaining the roads any more.  You wouldn't have thought that this was now the main road to the most northern settlement in WA. We had intended on camping for the night on the Carson river with Geoff who had some work to do at some the Telstra sites in the area. I gave him a call at the Carson on the Sat phone. It turns out he couldn't even make it to the Mitchell falls turn off  and got bogged several times. We must have been very lucky as he was only about an hour behind us.  We decided to push on for Honeymoon Bay

At last we arrived at Kalumburu. 4 hrs to do 200 km.
There was no road signs from here on so we had to ask the local store for directions. They were keen to point out that should it rain any more we could get stuck indefinitely. As we didn't have a restrictive time frame I wasn't to concerned but maybe I should have been.

The bush track to Frenchys Honeymoon bay

On arrival there was no dispute that this was the spot to hang out at. We had the  place to our selves as all the tourists had headed home and Frenchy was no where to be seen. We figured he may have been back in town so we set up camp after a long day on the road & went to bed early in anticipation of a good days fishing the next day. It turned out Frenchy had done a runner to Kununurra for one last time before the wet season. We had actually passed Frenchy back at the road works and he had caught up with Geoff back at Drysdale after Geoff abandoned his attempt to head any further north.

Hmmmm Paradise for us but for how long?