Hooked Up In T'Ville!

Hello from Townsville! We finally managed to get the photos off our old camera so here are a couple of underwater shots from Opal Reef off Port Douglas that we managed to snap before the camera shat itself!

Although, we were worried that we might encounter some of these guys in the water! The lycra suit is supplied to ward off stingers but they forgot to give us the knife. Luckily we didn't run into some of these nasty ones!

After all the excitement of Brons' first barramundi at Bluemetal Creek he wasn't fully satisfied so he did it all over again and managed to bag another Barra, a Mangrove Jack and a nice Flatehead as well. Ruth caught nothing! The rain was not really letting up and we got rather soggy one night walking back to camp after and evening fish, so we packed up and drove to Townsville to spend some time with Cousin Regan.

We've had a week in Townsville now and Rene has been looking after us too well and we don't want to go. It's been great catching up with Rene and little William. We have been using her place as a base to go fishing about the area. We have checked out a few places (Reid River, Majors Creek (down towards Charters Towers), Crystal Creek, Toolakea Beach, Saunders Beach, Pallarenda Beach and a couple of spots on the Ross River (Aplins Weir). All we have managed to turn up are a couple of Sooty Grunter at Reid River and a few Tarpon at Aplins Weir. Not big fellas but lots of fun on the smaller fly rods and our first Tarps for the trip.

Here's one of the little fellas.

And here is a bit of by catch!

Ouch and Bugger this one hurt. Abandoned the fishing for the day after this incident. Headed to home to see if Nurse Rene could extract the hook. It was in pretty deep and despite considerable yanking it wasn't going anywhere. Off to the Townsville hospital! Had to have a ring block put in to extract it and a tetanus shot for good measure but all is good now. Oh just in case you were wondering it's Ruth's finger.

Brons has been busy the last day or so changing the head gasket on Lulu. We decided to change it seeing we have been loosing water over the last week or so. Although we only have 1400km to go we didn't really want Lulu to die prematurely. Will be sad to leave Rene and Will. We have been totally spoilt with beautiful food and lovely hospitality. We'll probably hit the road on Saturday and head to Ayr where we hear there is some good flats fishing.

Bronson finally caught a barra!

Yep it's true! But first, where were we...? After browsing the markets at Port Douglas where we acquired some very tasty coffee choc bits, we headed not far from town and camped at a no camping site (with a few other campers) near Yule Point. The wind was atrocious so no fishing was had. The next day we packed up and headed into Cairns to re-stock the fridge and buy a new camera. From there we made for a little place called Babinda with a rest stop beside the river. The weather was pretty ordinary with plenty of rain. We managed to have a bit of a fish in the river and each caught a few small fish called Mouth Almighty. They look alot like little barra and true to their name they have one helluva mouth on them. After a pretty wet sort of an night we made our way back to Blue Metal Creek where Poppet got her barra with the aim of getting a few more. That was yesterday and after a late afternoon session we returned to camp empty handed. This morning we woke to more rain which wasn't heavy enough to dissuade us from going for a fish. Not long into the session and Bronson was on. It didn't prove to be a big fish but importantly it was a barra and that was the main thing! The rest of session didn't see us catch any more but we'll be heading back out this afternoon for another go! Will probably spend another couple of nights here before making our way to Townsville to catch up with cousin Regan for a few days. Hopefully we'll have a few more fish to report!

How happy is this guy?!

The return journey begins...

Not much to report from Cooktown. We stayed for a night at Little Annan river but could not tempt any fish from the waters. So south we went, stopping at the "Mighty" Palmer River roadhouse for a toasted sanga and a beer. We settled for the evening a half hour from Mossman in a little bird watching sanctuary by the side of the road. When we woke the next morning, the temperature was a very chilly 8 degrees. Aren't we supposed to be in the tropics? It was freezing, we're not sure how we're going to cope with southern temperatures again! From Mossman we headed into Cooyah Beach hoping to find some tarpon at the mouth of the Mossman River. We saw one or two decent fish but all we came up with were a little moses perch and a flounder! We headed back into Mossman for a couple of supplies and headed to a picnic area to do a bit of research. Here we bumped into one of the local personalities. A charming aboriginal chap who called himself "Stan the Man". Stan appeared to have reached a state of inebriation hard core alcoholics could only dream of. Most of his rambling was somewhat incoherent but through his remaining cracked and discoloured teeth we were able to decipher a few words including often repeated declarations of love for us both! Plus he thought Bronson was "queer" because he didn't have any children. We hastily bid farewell to Stan and his overpowering aroma (we agreed he may well not have heard of a little invention called "soap"), and made our way into Port Douglas. We booked a couple of nights accommodation at a backpackers resort called Dougies. Not a bad spot, alot cheaper than a caravan park and with better facilities. Yesterday we took a cruise out to the Barrier Reef and did some snorkeling. It was absolutely fantastic and we had hoped to post some beautiful photos had our water proof camera not shit itself. Apparently it isn't as waterproof as the manufacturers claim them to be. It would seem it's a common problem made worse by the fact ours is 18 months old and no longer covered by warranty. Not happy Jan. Now we have no camera. So now we're sitting out front of the bar at Dougies, about to head into town to check out the markets. then we might head down the road abit and see if we can find some more fish! Be good peoples!