Coral Coast

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October 24th 2005

Published: October 24th 2005

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Doydie

Lloyd's first fish

An ode from Lloyd:

Yesterday we finally caught a fish,
It was more than anyone could wish.
We cooked it at camp,
Right under the lamp,
And served it on a big dish.

Pest In Peace Threadfin Salmon.
Died: 29th September 2005
Where: Barn Hill Beach
How: On the end of a No: 2/0 sized hook.
Epitaph: **** Excellent crumbed.

Lloyd pretty much summed it up. The Coral Coast is fantastic for fishing and we have bee lucky almost every time we put the line in the water. At the moment we are in Denham which seems to be one the best kept secrets along this coast. Warm water, great beaches, excellent fishing (even if you don’t have a boat) and a Telenet centre next to a coffee shop and opposite a park so that as we type we can reorder coffee and watch the kids play on the park next to the beach. Since the last time we been to Barn Hill which is a cattle station/caravan park run by the locals. It even has its own lawn bowls on a grassed lawn. We headed to 80 Mile Beach and were attacked by mossies and sandflies. If

Barn Hill

any one doesn’t know about sandflies, it only takes one encounter and you scratch for about 2 weeks. Apparently they don’t bite, they just wee on you. Hell of a lifestyle. The only thing to do at 80 Mile is fish. 2 hours before and after the high tide. Funniest thing is to see new people arrive where they see the blue water from the drive in. They get set up and ready for a swim or fish and then head to the top of the sand dune towards the beach. Best fun is to see them come back though. We all do it. Apart from high tide, when the water is close to the dunes and the beach is wall to wall people fishing for about 2 klm either side of you (no, seriously); the tide goes OUT 1 kilometre so if you wanted to swim or fish, it’s a hell of a walk. Even then the water is only about 1 metre deep and the caravan park operators say ‘If you want to swim, we really don’t know what’s out in the water and strongly advise that you don’t swim’. Did I mention sharks are caught from the

Tom Price

Keeping the natives restless

beach. Still it’s funny to watch the new people arrive each day. Hope they like fishing.

From there we headed down to Karijini National Park, which was beautiful and a great place to swim, lots of gorges and water holes - we’re not sick of them yet! Tom Price was an interesting town, built just for the iron ore mining. And from there it was back to the beach and to our favourite place of the whole trip (so far) Exmouth and the Cape Range National Park. We camped behind the sand dunes and virtually had a whole beach to ourselves. There were turtles on the beach and the kids enjoyed spotting them and the sting rays that swam in the shallows. It was a short drive to Turquiose Beach where we spent 2 days snorkelling on Ningaloo Reef, it was just like Fiji - lots of fish and coral. Molly got so excited the first time she snorkelled she kept trying to talk with her snorkel on and filling it up with water. Lots more beaches, (blowholes near Carnarvon) etc here we are at Shark Bay, where we’ve fed the dolphins and been on a Catamaran to see

Tom Price

Keeping the natives restless

the dugongs. It is so nice we think we’ll stay another couple of days. Especially since Geoff caught some nice Bream last night. Well, until next we find a park with a Café and Telecentre in close proximity, Love to you all, Ange, Geoff, Lloyd, Molly and Lucy. Aka TTWWPD or something like that.

PS: any mail can be sent to Fremantle GPO cheers

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