Port Smith

5 nights have passed very fast at Port Smith. We have both loved it here as much as anywhere we’ve been so far! I’m not saying this would be the place everyone HAS to visit, but if you don’t mind the 20k drives in and out again on the dirt, don’t need shops, a pool or many facilities, this is a great place. We are amazed that people will drive in; stay hitched up and drive out in the morning without ever getting the feel for the place. Much easier to overnight at one of the roadhouses on the highway.

It’s not a big park-there are 95 powered van sites and we reckon they have only been just over half full all the time we’ve been here. The sites are large and shady, but on red dirt. The boat launching area is 600 metres down a red dirt track passed the bird park. The caravan park and bird park are a little island in the middle of 3 aboriginal communities and there is nothing else here.

Port Smith is actually a large tidal lagoon, but was used in the early days in bad weather to keep the pearl luggers from 80 mile beach safe, so they called it a “port” At low tide it is amazing to see the small channels amongst the sand, amongst the mangroves. As the tide rushes in through the entrance, the sand and channels disappear creating a beautiful lagoon for a few hours until the tide leaves again. Fishing is best done a couple of hours before and after high tide- if you leave it too long, you risk not being able to retrieve your boat!

Fishing at Port Smith


One of the nice things about the park is the mix of people. It’s mostly out-of-staters and mostly people travelling on their own. We have found parks where the people “have been coming here for 30 years” with their same group of friends to be not so outgoing. Right now we have Victorians over the road and are surrounded by NSW and Queensland couples this side. Russ reckons it must be a park rule that you have to speak to everyone at least once during your stay. I think it’s because everyone is here to fish and are so interested in what everyone else has caught. It’s really nice that the park managers, staff and everyone else is happy to tell you where and how they caught whatever they got too.

Launching the Boat Through the Mangroves

The park is full of tinnies as you would struggle to launch anything bigger and if you don’t have a boat, the park operates a “ferry service”. Every two days, they take groups of people by inflatable dingy to one of the islands. 4 hours later they go down and collect them. All of this is done for $2 per person which is then donated to the RFD.

We have been catching enough fish for a feed although Russ is doing better than me so far. It’s fun to see different types of fish and we’ve had a lot of fun catching fairly decent sized Gold Trevally and Russ caught a couple of Queen Fish yesterday. They both tasted good in a curry last night and the trevally smokes really well. Gold Trevally is considered a better eating fish than most of the other trevally species which we think make very good bait Mike and Mary across the way from us caught themselves two enormous flathead yesterday! They were fishing about 100 metres from us when they got them! Another couple Chris and Nicole were about 50 metres the other way when their son caught a small shark. It’s amazing the variety of fish in such a small area.