Kakadu and Darwin

While we were camped in Kakadu with Roy & Marg, the 4 of us decided on a 3 hour Yellow Water Barramundi Fishing Cruise, rather than a sightseeing cruise with all the other tourists.  We had Shaun our guide all to ourselves so set off with grand hopes of bringing back the big one(s).  The Yellow Water Billabong is a beautiful wetland, full of salt water (man eating) crocodiles, bird life - and hopefully plenty of barramundi.  The cost of the tour was $145 each.

We cruised past crocodile after crocodile lazing on the banks until we got to the perfect place to throw in a line. 

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Shaun showed us the tricks of casting our line then jiggling the lure to tease the Barra onto our hooks.  Barramundi like to swim in clear water, and we had a wide section of reeds in front of the boat, then a small patch where the fish like to hang out.  So trying to cast far enough to get past the reeds into the clear water was a challenge, let alone teasing the fish onto our hooks.

Roy cast his line past the reeds and was the first to catch a Barra, but it was too small so was released to live another day.  Shaun was getting pretty excited so Marg offered him her rod and before long he pulled in a beauty which measured 65 cm and big enough to keep. 

The next 2.5 hours were spent casting and retrieving with Shaun the most determined out of all of us to get the big one.  I managed to catch a small one (the same one Roy threw back I think) and Alan and Marg had no luck at all.  We contented ourselves watching crocodiles sliding through the water close by and a Jabiru on the water’s edge hunting and eating snakes.

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So for almost $600 we (Shaun) caught one edible sized fish which he scaled and filleted for us.  We downed Margaritas at sunset, and Roy cooked our delicious fish on his Weber Baby Q.

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After 4 great days it was sad leaving Marg and Roy in Cooinda.  They’ll continue their journey back to Perth, and we headed for Darwin. 

Darwin is alive with midges at the moment, so everyone is scratching their bites and discussing the best remedies and repellents.   Vitamin B1 is supposed to be the answer, but we’ve been taking them for months now and still getting bitten.   We’ve bought a potent insecticide recommended on the NT Government website and sprayed all around the caravan which seems to be working.  We stay away from any grass (difficult in a caravan park) and use a selection of creams and sprays on our bodies, especially at night.

Each year the Australian Defence Force hosts “Exercise Pitch Black” in Darwin.  Participants from Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, US and Singapore are all up here playing war games.  So every day, F/A18’s and assorted fighter jets hurtle through Darwin on their way to Woomera, South Australia for target practice.  Darwin isn’t very big, so it doesn’t matter where you when a fleet of F/A18’s takes off, it’s pretty noisy.  They reach speeds of nearly 2,000 km/h and here at the caravan park we feel like we should be opening the van door for them to fly through.  The other day while we were out bike riding 10 flew over us in succession – what an incredible sight!  Another night we parked at the end of the runway with a bunch of other people and watched them coming in to land. 

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On Saturday night we went to the Darwin Rodeo Championships.  There were mostly locals in the stands and we sat one row below from a rowdy bunch behind us.  One of the girls spilt her Bundy and Coke all down Alan’s back.  She apologised profusely, then did exactly the same thing half an hour later. 

The highlight of the night was the bull riding.  One bull threw the rider off, and then attacked him, and the clowns who came to his rescue.  He tossed them around like rag dolls until the rider was eventually dragged back into the pen and the St John medics ran to treat him.  The next bull out did exactly the same thing to his rider and clowns.  We found out next day that there was quite a bit of damage, with a broken cheek, broken ankle, and severe cuts and bruising to the guys the bulls attacked.

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Tomorrow we’re off on another adventure to Nhulunbuy.  It’s part of Arnhem Land on the Gove Peninsula and is a mixture of Rio Tinto bauxite mining, and one of the last remaining traditional Aboriginal areas in Australia.  The Indigenous Land Corporation doesn’t allow caravans on their roads, so that counted us out, and it’s 650 kms of corrugations there and back out again.  We were pretty determined to get there, so booked frequent flyer flights from Darwin.  We’re leaving the caravan and car at the Hidden Valley Tourist Park while we’re gone for 5 days.