Should'a' Gone Fishing

We went over to Monkey Mia crabbing today-I'm embarassed to say we only got 3 crabs AND 12 whiting and 3 big flathead. Should'a' gone fishing and we may have caught more crabs!

Fishing and Hot Tubs

We went fishing "out the front" yesterday. It was a particularly slow fishing day, but Russ did manage to catch our first ever Spanish Mackerel late in the day. We also caught a couple of snapper after we got him. We pan fried the mackerel, cooked up some oven baked wedges and made a big salad. Fresh, well filleted mackerel is now my official favourite fish-it was so good!

This morning after a cup of coffee, we packed up and went out to the old Peron Homestead for a soak in the artesian hot-tub. After an hour or so in the water, we cooked up bacon, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms and toast on the BBQ. I can't remember when we last had a cooked breakfast, so it made for a lovely start to the day.


14 Months Ago

Fishing and Dolphins

Today promised to be a gorgeous day, so we jumped in the car and headed off fishing. Drove 25ks, put the car in 4wd launched the boat, pushed it over the shallows, then motored out about 3ks. It was right at this moment Russ remembered he'd forgotten our bait. We had a bucket of yesterday's cooked crab shells to dispose of, so hunted through them for some claw "knuckles" caught ourselves a few barracuta, then proceeded to fish. We ended up with two lovely pink snapper-55 and 58 cm. We're only allowed one each and they have to be over 50 and under 70cm so we were very happy.

I managed to shoot an amazing little video of 4 dolphins playing around our boat (would have been better if I'd figured the camera out 5 minutes before!). I posted it to facebook if anyone is interested.

Whales

Launching the boat at Fowler's Camp


Russ and I have really been enjoying the mild weather-around 22c of a day and about 14c of a night (it was much colder of a night at Coral Bay!). We've been doing a bit of fishing and crabbing but not having much success at either. We caught 15 crabs on our first attempt and were very pleased with that, then 12, 4 and today 7.

We had a lovely day fishing off Fowler's Camp and Eagle Bluff last Thursday-we caught around 40 undersized pink salmon each, and nothing of size to bring home but it was still a wonderful day out there. It's such a pretty place, such and easy beach to launch the boat off and we wonder why we haven't done it before. The only reason we did it this time was the many many boats putting in here at the boat ramp in town-it's always a pain to come back in when the ramp is busy.

Eagle Bluff


Coming Back to the Car After Fishing


Today we went out to Monkey Mia to crab. It was a still morning with the water like glass. I spotted a couple of whales on the horizon-too far away for us to go look. It was great when they moved closer though and we could motor up a few minutes to get a closer look at them. We stopped the hundred metres away we're supposed to and watched in awe (it is awesome from a tinny!) as the waved tails and fins in the air, rolled over and just generally played around. We watched for about 20 minutes before going on with oour crabbing, but they hung around for about another hour! We only brought home 7 crabs, but our whale encounter made it all worth while.

Monkey Mia

The Pearl Farm Monkey Mia


Looking the Other Way as We Fished by the Pearl Farm


The rain cleared and we woke to a gorgeous, still day. Russ went down town and bought us a couple of new crab nets, then we headed out to Monkey Mia.We had a great day catching 10 crabs (so not quite as good as Tuesday), were excited when 3 dolphins swam under the boat then surfed in our wake, and anngry when giraffe-necked pearl farmer Jamie of The Farmer Wants a Wife fame, PUSHED in front of us on the boat ramp. He's creepy and rude!

My Favourite Sand Dune on the Monkey Mia Road


Brought our crabs home, cooked them, vacuum sealed and froze a couple of packs but kept all the big chunks of claw meat to put through a spicy nasi goreng I made. We had that along with a ginger, soy, chilli steamed fish dish. Super, super yummy dinner.

In Denham and Russ and I have Crabs

After not getting crabs last year, we certainly made up for it this year.

It's been pouring here at Denham, but weatherman Russ assured me it wouldn't be raining at Moneky Mia. He was right. We went out and caught ourselves 15 crabs in just over an hour. 11were the biggest we've ever caught there, and 4 were over size-just. Crab sandwiches for lunch tomorrow, Chilli Crab for dinner tomorrow night and a packet of meat for the freezer for Thai crab cakes when we get to Perth! Yummmmm.

Weight Loss

I stepped on those wonderful scales this morning to find 32kg GONE! 32kg (for those of you who don't know or remember) is 70lbs or 5 stone or, a lot of weight. I started out 110kgs and a very snug size 24, now I'm a very loose size 16. I never dreamed I might get to a 14 when I started this healthy eating plan (it's NEVER been a "diet")! There's a little way to go, but I try not to think about that, preferring to set myself small goals along the way. The next one is 35kg cos it's a nice round (or no longer so round!) figure.

Shopping, shopping, shopping

I'm glad we're leaving Carnarvon tomorrow because if we stayed any longer, we, have no money left to move on with!!

We haven't seen a decent supermarket, charging reasonable prices since we left Port Hedland about 5 weeks ago and won't see another for a month, so we spent up big in Woolies supermarket and bottle shop last night. We also bought ourselves 2 new reels, a rod, 200 fishing hooks, some squid jigs and a BOAT SEAT for me. After 5 years my back is starting to ache really badly as we sit out fishing so it was time to do something about it.

This morning we did our fruit and veg shopping at the various plantations and market gardens along North and South River roads. A huge chunk of both roads was washed away in the floods so we had to go in one end, back another way and out onto the highway along another road. One of the stall owners told us it'll likely never be re-opened which is something of a shame as it wrecks a really enjoyable round trip!

Right now, our van smells of the beautiful basil I bought at Morel's along with heaps of other herbs and asian greens. We have kgs of tomatoes at various stages of ripeness and around 3kg of bananas so I really feel rich! I don't think you could fit a credit card into either fridge or freezer at the moment as we're so well stocked with food.

We did a bit of shopping in Target too-I got some new (smaller) undies and Russ got a pair of shorts. Shane Warne has put his name to a line called Spinners sold by Target. For any of you who remember my 4XL husband, these he bought today were size 82 and look really good on him!

Carnarvon

We left Coral Bay this morning and moved on here to Carnarvon where we'll spend two nights shopping, shopping, shopping (food, alcohol and fishing gear to go on to Denham with).

Our last night in Coral Bay was wonderful. After 6 visits to the place, we finally discovered how much fun happy hour is at the pub. We went on Friday night and again last night with our fishing neighbours Kylie and Wayne and our non-fishing friends Borys and Janenne. We met some friends of Wayne and Kylie's and ran into our friends Ron and Irene, so it was a really good night. Happy hour starts at 5.30, finishes at 6.30 and we got home sometime after 8! I'd had the good sense to make a chicken curry and Wayne had made a fish curry before we went to the pub, so Russ cooked some rice, Kylie made a salad and we put it all together and ate around 9pm.

Coral Bay was lots of fun-great fishing, but a bit cool to do much snorkeling, so we have decided go back up there for 4 weeks in September so we can do some more! We'll be in Denham a month, go into Perth, fly to Bali, come home and head back up a few days later!

Carnarvon was really hit hard by storms earlier in the year-it suffered huge flood and most of the crops and plantations were damaged or destroyed. It's slowly recovering, but you really see evidence of the floods still. There used to be 3 service stations right near this caravan park-two are gone and the third next door is being rebuilt right now.

The Gascoyne river normally flows underground for most of the year so it's amazing to see water flowing on the surface, but also amazing to see the destruction it's caused as it flooded through the plantations.

Tea at the Pub

Last night we went to the pub for a counter tea with the kids in the bus and the twins mum and dad Boris and Janine. We had lots of fun. The highlight of my night was running into one of the people who inspired me NOT to have lap banding and to lose weight all by myself. Her reaction to my weight loss made it all worth while-she oohed and ahhed, told me I looked so much younger, gave me a hug and asked very quietly "have you had IT done". I was rapt to be able to say "no, I did it myself"!

The bus is on its way to Broome today-the place will be very quiet with them gone!