We arrived at Yardie Homestead on Thursday 3rd July after a couple of nights in Carnarvon. I’m not all that fond of Carnarvon, but it’s a great place to stock up with groceries at Woolies and IGA and to buy all the wonderful fruit and veg that’s produced in the area. We came away with tomatoes, bananas and avocados in various stages of ripeness. We bought zuccs, pumpkins, eggplant, red and green capsicums, herbs, corn, and pink grapefruit. The stuff is cheap at the farm gates and so fresh you can’t believe it.
Yardie has been a bit windy to do much. We got the boat off the car on Thursday night and put it in on Friday (4th) morning, but gave up after a couple of hours as it got too uncomfortable to fish. It’s a real shame as this is probably the best fishing spot we ever visit. Yesterday we sat around and did nothing. I get a bit bored, lonely and homesick if we can’t get out and fish or do something, soon Sunday (7th) we decided to get moving and go on the boat trip at Yardie Creek Gorge about 55ks from here. It was really good, not long, but very pretty and well worth the drive through the national park. On the way home, we stopped at a secluded beach and had a picnic-stras and leftover ratatouille-simple but so yummy. We’d taken our snorkels and masks along, but the wind was whipping up little waves and it just didn’t feel warm enough to swim.
Yardie Creek
I don’t know if it’s cooler this year, but we are still using our doona and I haven’t had a sleeveless shirt out in a long time. Maybe we are getting acclimatised!
Tuesday the 9th, we braved the wind and headed out fishing for the afternoon. It seems we weren’t the only ones suffering with cabin fever as the boat trailer car park was packed. It was rough out, but still better than just sitting at home for yet another day.
We caught heaps of fish-lots of my favourite, Charlie Court Cod, lots of various emperors and an amazing array of fish that should be in an aquarium. The most interesting of these were a triple tailed wrasse, a hinge jaw wrasse and a blue fish we have only ever caught at coral bay (he was about 4 times the size we usually see). We also caught bigger than normal rabbit fish and leather jackets.
Hinge Jaw Wrasse
We kept 4 Charlie Court Cod and two emperors (a sweet lip and some other variety!). That gave us dinner last night and two feeds in the freezer. Russ made us THE best home made fish and chips I’ve eaten in years last night with two of the CCC’s.
When we were in Perth, we bought two portable gas cookers (the ones that use the disposable cans of gas) to use here, and we have discovered they cook the best fish, chips and steaks! The park has very limited power supply and we can’t use our aircon, oven, hotplates, microwave, toaster, jug, sandwich maker or a hair dryer (not much of a worry to me with my hair). The van has a 4 burner stove, but after 2 ½ years of cooking outside, I can’t bring myself to start using it much. We sometimes boil our water and cook a bit of rice or our veg in here, but that’s about all.
Thursday and Friday mornings, we went out early and had a fantastic time. The water clarity was amazing and with the lack of wind (and waves) the reef was beautiful. I love it when we see all the tiny fish and the ones that steal our bait or we eventually hook. Thursday, we came home with a great feed of CCC and Red Throat Emperor-too much for us, so we gave one feed away to neighbours George and Margaret. They’ve been coming here for years and fish quite successfully off the beach but had never caught or tasted CCC as they live amongst the coral so you need a boat to get them. (Or maybe the neighbours tell everyone that and are kept in CCC ;-)!)
Fishing for Red Throat Emperor in 3 Metres of Water!
On Friday, we went fishing again, but just to go out on a beautiful morning. We released all we caught and took photos of any interesting reef fish we brought up. If anything, the water clarity was better than the day before. We headed in around 12.30 and after a quick shower headed to town to do some shopping (especially needed disposable butane to keep cooking!) We lunched in town at the Chinese and enjoyed it so much (both had delicious noodle dishes) that we’ve decided to do it again when we are in there. It’s almost 40ks to town, so it needs planning.
Dinner on Friday night was a recipe by my friend Jules in Queensland called Trinidadian Lime Thyme fish. We marinated our previous days catch (or part of it) in lime, thyme and dark rum, cooked off an onion and garlic then added two chopped, skinned tomatoes, cooked them down and added the fish, marinade, s&p and chopped coriander. It was amazing over rice and I wish I could eat it again tonight but I can’t as we have some steak about to slide past its use-by date.
After two near perfect days, the wind is up again and we can’t go fishing. So, today is a day of rest. Russ has done a load of laundry and now we are relaxing. Tomorrow looks like more of the same, with the weekly roast dinner put on by the park to look forward to, and then Monday is supposed to be a better day. That works well for us as we’ll be ready for more fresh fish by then.
It’s school holidays here in WA at the moment and the park is chock-a-block full of people. They’ve just started to develop some more sites out the back near the old shearing shed and we reckon there are 50 tents or vans over there without power. It’s making it hard to get a hot shower (actually even a coldish shower is a win) and the boat ramp and trailer park are so busy and full it’s amazing. Anyhow, the madness will be over in a week for another few months.
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