Tinnies and Croc Traps

The Melbourne winters all seemed a bit cold and dark so last week, we headed up for a week of guaranteed warmth in the NT.

Search for the cooke-strugnell secret fishing spot

After a bit of fuss involving a missing tow-bar and a couple of thousand attempts at backing down the Nightcliff Boat ramp we finally got our little ship going on the search for fish in Darwin harbour.

Off we go

It was time to initiate Jan to the great cooke fishing spot of yore … soon to become the cooke-strugnell fishing spot. We can’t give too much away, but suffice to say that after some stuffing around at East point we headed across the harbour to woods inlet. While we left the crap pots to soak it was time to hook into a nice little school of bream. After I showed her were the fish were Louise managed to bag quite a few … they were scrumptious later on at dinner.

Louise was pretty proud of her fishing achievments

Of course, we tried some other spots, but all we got were sharks

Mum reminisced about some of her big catches at the cooke-strugnell fishing spot

After we got back from our day out in the salt and spray of a day on the water it was time to cook up the catch. Mum as usual excelled, but Jan and I had a mad rush around getting ready to head off to Jabiru the next day to join dad on the annual warddeken walk. The next day we were up at the crack of dawn … well .. we were awake in body, but Jan didn’t really wake up till about 2pm.

Walking on the Plateau

Using his amazing powers of organisation Dad managed to get us a ride out to join the annual Wardekken walk. It all started with an awesome chopper ride.

In the Chopper

We flew out to the last bush campsite on the walk, a spot beside two billabongs with a backdrop of fabulous rocks. Initially things were pretty busy, loading and unloading hundreds of backpacks, but after a few hours we were settled in.

We spent the next couple of days exploring, catching up with people and taking in the timeless beauty of where we were. Then it was time to walk out. On the walk Jan was quite taken with the termite mounds.

Mandorah

We capped off our trip with a trip to Mandorah for the day. Despite the fact that Darwin keeps changing, the Mandorah pub and jetty remain pretty much the same as ever. Even though the burgers take forever, nobody cares because there is a cool breeze blowing, and you can look out at the harbour.

The End