Addicted to Bass!

Hello from Netty's kitchen table!

From Station Creek we headed north up the coast to Wooli (pronounced Woolai not Wooly!). What a great little town, we could see ourselves retiring there one day. We fished the creek with poor results on the first day and camped just out of town at Digger's Camp. That evening just as we were about to give up on the surf fishing Ruth's rod hit the sand and started to take line. A sting ray was landed after much huffing and puffing. We fished Wooli again the next day where we were given a bum steer from a local and ended up in a dud fishing spot so he could steal our spot! Ruth managed to land a couple of flathead on the fly caught in the flats on the outgoing tide at Wooli. Another night back at Digger's Camp, a close encounter with an emu, an experience with a carpet snake wrangling Spaniard and then headed up to Lawrence to spend a couple of nights with June and Rob Hooker. We had a lovely time with the Hooker's, although it was very hot in Lawrence town. A couple of day trips to Yamba and Iluka for some swims were wonderful heat busting adventures. It was amazing to see how quickly the area had recovered from significant floods only three weeks earlier. We left Lawrence with our fridge stocked with home grown vegies from Rob's garden and a container of goodies baked by June. Thank you to you both for having us and your wonderful company. We then headed to one of the Hooker's local fishing holes on the Mann River at Cangai (about an hour west of Grafton). No joy on the fishing front but we managed a heap of swims to cool down (although the water was only marginally cooler at 31 degrees). From Cangai to Kyogle for a cupper with Netty, then out to the bass fishing dam of Toonumber. We had a couple of nights here in the rain but at least it was cooler. Bronson absolutely smashed the bass in the overflow from the dam catching 11 bass in two sessions on soft plastics. Ruth managed 2 on the fly after giving up trying to figure out how to fish a plastic. The fish were hard fighting and a couple were around the 40cm mark, which is apparently pretty bloody good for bass. We also saw the usual assortment of goannas roaming around, the ugliest and biggest cricket we've ever seen and a Peron's tree frog who decided our bed might be a good place to hang out!

We' re at Netty's place in Kyogle now and just got back from a couple of hours fishing at Lynches Creek up the road. One of Netty's friends kindly let us access the creek via their paddock. What a great place, there was a nice deep hole for fishing and swimming. Here we indulged in a lovely lunch and a spot of fishing. Bronson came up trumps with a huge catfish caught on a soft plastic.

Aside, Lulu has had a bit of an upgrade to her battery system. We had some cables made up in Grafton so we could charge the auxiliary battery off the alternator when we are driving. This should help us out when there isn't much sun about.

We are both well, a little sleep deprived before the rains hit a couple of nights ago. It's getting bloody hot in Lulu at night time, especially if there isn't much of a breeze. We have been sleeping upside down in the van so our heads are near the open windows. We think we need to engineer a mozzie proof way of leaving the boot door open overnight so we can get some air and hence some sleep. Might even splurge and buy a 12volt fan.

Heading up to the Gold Coast tomorrow to see all the ex Tassies we known up here. The place seems to be full of them. Keep an eye on the trip photos as we'll attempt to post a few recent fishy photos to prove we can actually catch fish! Be good peoples!