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Published: July 30th 2011
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A lot has been happening since I last tried to blog. Fishing, broken cars, more fishing & a fair bit of driving. In the interest of common sense I shall attempt a somehwat chronological order to things.
The last blog was on a Wednesday 10 odd days ago. Amy Skype'd her class & then I can't remember what else happened. I prsume it was a good day like most of the others to this point!
I do remeber the Thursday though. Dutch took Phil & I fishing with a mate of his (Jeremy) to a secret spot somewhere West of Katherine. It was a great little drive through some bush to get there. Poor old Dutch scratched his new 4WD a few hundred times but I'm sure they'll polish out. Now it is time to cue the standing ovation - I caught my first Barra. And my second. And my third. However (minor golf clap only at this point) they were all undersize. It was great fun though. One of the spots we went to has a couple of known "nuisance" crocodiles so that was a bit scary. A few fish were caught though. That night we all went
down to the Sergeant's Mess for the pay day Mexican Buffet. That was good fun, particularly for Ang & the Rigby's as they won a few six packs of beer between them.
On Friday we had some boring errands to run but it finished off with a trip around the airforce base. We got to see the fire fighters section including all of the wicked trucks. I don't know about everyone else but I thought it was great fun climbing through everything, opening & closing the air pressure doors like a child :-)The kids also got to see the medical chopper land only a couple of hundred metres in front of them.
On Saturday the Rigbys, Ang & us headed up to Darwin. It took us a while, with a stop in Adelaide River for a lunch feed. After a fair bit of investigationing into a few caravan parks, we decided on a cravan park whose name is currently evading me. It was quite good though & we managed to sneak three tents onto one site. The pools & jumping pillow kept the kids happy while we were there, but most of our time was out & about.
Sunday saw us wandering around the Darwin wharf area for a lunch feed (I had a camel burger - sort of like beef!) & then some time at the wave pool for the kids, Phil & me. It was good fun, especially for Nath who grabbed a body board & proceeded to get amongst the waves. We had a quick late afternoon beer at one of the local Irish pubs & then sent the old girls out to the Mindal Markets for dinner while Phil & I sorted the kids. We had classic Dad cooked food of Spag Bol for dinner :-) The girls saw a nice sunset on the beach with some food from the local stalls & claimed to have had a pretty good time.
Next day was spent firstly at Crocodylus & then preparing for the next few days. Crocdylus is a working crocdile farm that also houses some of the crocs that get removed from rivers & properties. They also farm the meat & skin for sale. It started off with them feeding a group of crocs off of a line that dragged the meat above a pool. It was cool seeing them jump
out of the water to grab it. Then we fed the crocs in the breeding pens. Some of these were above 15 feet in length. Phil & I got the chance to feed a couple of them. Man they are quick to pounce. One second they are dead still. The next second they are dead still but the water is moving & the meat is gone! There were also other animals including the usual tigers, lions & monkeys. One of the monkeys put his hand out to Suz to ask for her apple core but she said no, she wasn't allowed to feed him. He chucked a tantrum that any two year old would be proud of, ranting & raving then jumping up & down while rattling the cage! We were going to buy some croc meat for the BBQ that night but the bloke that sells it on the side of the road wasn't there that day. Boo hiss.
Dutch came up to meet us on Tuesday & the boys headed off to the Daly River for a few days. Dutch's mate Rick/Eric/Lewis/Mugoomba (top bloke) also came along. We got there mid arvo & set up camp. This
was after talking to the owner Georgie. What a weapon she was. She called Phil a pussy for wanting a more grassy spot & yelled at Rick like a trooper for driving too fast. Anyway, that arvo we had a quick fish & set the pots for Cherapin for bait the next day. Cherapin are a sort of freshwater shrimp. I got the first Barra (yay) but it was undersized (boo). A quiet night followed with an early start on Wednesday.
We pretty much spent all day on the river on Wednesday. After speaking to the locals the night before to get the good info, we collected the pots (only seven bloody Cherapin) & headed off in the opposite direction to catch some of the big fish that were supposedly on offer. Over the next day & a half we saw some crazy things such as a 4 metre odd croc eating a 2 metre odd croc. A bull shark chasing a barra on Phil's line & a saw tooth shark cruising the river 80 km from the mouth. What we did not see was a single size fish out of the 20 plus that we caught. A bit
of a bummer but we had a heap of fun anyway, poking shit at each other, drinking beer at 9am & listening to Dutchy snore akin to the sound of 10 jumbo jets cutting down 20 trees with 30 chainsaws. It was the first sort of boys trip I'd had in a while & I loved it! Meanwhile the girls & kids hung around Darwin for an extra day, staying in a hotel, using hair conditioner, drinking wine & occasionally doing stuff with the kids like going to the museum, swimming at the pool & on Wednesday, taking the kids to Litchfield National Park. Thursday night was pretty quiet as we were all stuffed once we got home & we needed to pack to leave the next day. Suz had also taken the Maverick in for a new alternator. $756. Enough said!
Yesterday we farewelled Dutch & Ang who have been nothing short of fantastic in putting us up for two odd weeks & basically just putting up with us. They showed us the sites of Katherine & beyond. Good peoples. The Rigby's haed straight off south whilwe Suz, me & the kids had to head back into Katherine
to sort out the bankl rubbish that has been dogging us. We then ended up driving for eight odd hours to land in Three Ways, where the Rigby's had already arrived. On the way we stopped at the Daly Waters pub for a schooner, checking out all of the bras 7 undies stuck to the ceilings & walls.
Today was spent travelling to Alice Springs where we are camping with the Rigby's for the last time before we part ways. Another long drive through nothingness except for the Devil's Marbels which were an amazing site.
Rooted now & am being anti-social so I shall sign off. Toodle-loo.
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