Today is our last day in Port Smith-I’m going to be very sad to leave and move on to Broome. I’m wondering how we’ll enjoy it after the peace and quiet and friendliness of this park.
We had some people pull in behind us (Perry and Julie) and have had a really good time with them. They are from Penrith near Sydney and although they are going North like us, they’ll be moving on today, doing it a bit faster and often free camping so the chances of catching up are a bit unlikely.
They have a boat, but only put it in the water once. The fishing disappointed them, so they put it back on the car and planned to move on. It’s funny because that day Russ caught a couple of decent sized Golden trevally (one on his bait hand line) and I caught the biggest fish I’ve ever landed on my bream line! While we were out fishing, a couple of quite large dolphins passed us and one went right under the boat-beautiful to see in the clear water of the lagoon. Russ had only said the day before that there mustn’t be dolphins around here-it was almost like they were saying “yes there are”!
Anyhow, Perry and Julie were told about a nice spot 12 ks out of the park where they would be guaranteed to catch fish from the shore. They drove about 70ks trying to find the place (into the community at one stage) but eventually did. Perry was very happy to catch himself a metre long cod!
Perry's "Secret" Spot
Yesterday they took us out there (by the short route!) and we all managed to catch a few fish (no metre long cod this time though) but we returned all but a queen fish Julie caught. There is only so much fish we can eat! It was a beautiful place and we spent a really enjoyable day watching the tide go in and out changing the mangrove flats into to a lagoon. As usual, we saw plenty of turtles (and the remains of a fire where the aboriginals had cooked one), we saw brolgas, a pair of very beautiful (but poisonous) lion fish just floating in a pool below us, a blue spotted ray, reef shark and any number of big fish too well fed to bite just swimming by! We managed to bog both cars in the sand at different times which added to the excitement!
Bogged to the Axles!
Last night the park put on Thursday dinner. We had fish and chips (not fish again!). I was very impressed that they managed to cook beautiful fish and chips for about 170 people in about 1 ½ hours. All this was done with 3 small deep fryers and a couple of large saucepans in the camp kitchen. The park owner and workers supplied a lot of the fish, but many of us donated fish too. The three big Golden Trevally we caught went to the dinner. An Aboriginal singer (Gentleman Jim Reno) played for us last night and while I didn’t enjoy his endless Elvis songs, he was pretty good. An interesting group of Aboriginal ladies came in from an out post past the other communities. They have been abused and decided to make a life on their own. They are fencing to keep out wild cattle and growing their own vegetables. One of them took her children to Perth for a year to see what it’s like then brought them back as none of them enjoyed it and found it too cold. One of the best parts of the night was when a guy got up with his African drum and played alongside GJR and his didgeridoo. It really was amazing.
So, on to Broome tomorrow. I really hope we leave all the sandflies behind as we are both being eaten alive fast!
No comments:
Post a Comment