The day began at sunrise when the unprepared fisherpersons put the gear in the car and poceeded to the rock ledges on the northern beaches and found that half the population of Karumba was already there fishing! We joined them and proceeded to catch some of the biggest toadfish I have ever seen. Susan resisted my suggestion that I should search the internet for fugu recipes and we returned them to the water. The highlight was Susan hooking something tenacious and fighting hard. She passed the rod to me to do battle with the denizen on the 3kg line. A small crowd gathered expecting that we had hooked the illusive barra. However early on I had a fair idea of what it was and my suspicions were confirmed as a very pretty speckled stingray with a tail around 2 metres long lay beaten in the shallows. I decided at this point it would be a good idea to sever the line which I did managing to recover the sinker rather than have a Steve Irwin episode.
Whiptail Ray here
Nobody appeared to be catching much so we adjourned to the estuary. The rocks took a toll on the tackle so after catching a few undersized bream we returned home for a pancake breakfast. Susan had a swim and we then tripped into town to get some gulf prawns from Raptis and replenish the diesel in the car.
After a prawn feast for lunch with attendant white wine we once again adjourned to the pool which took us nicely through to the free sausage sizzle for tea. After pausing to introduce ourselves to our new neighbours Tony and Corinne we strolled to the Sunset bar to just miss the sunset and had some lattes.
Returning to camp we spent a pleasant evening chatting with the new neighbours.
We have plenty of bait left so will be fishing first thing in the morning as soon as we wake up :-). We have booked in for 2 more nights at least. The mossies are still swarming but the ole pea beau takes care of the canvas internals and the Rid works well outside so hopefully we are safe from Dengue fever, Murray Valley Encephalitis, Ross River virus and malaria!
See it isn't all beer and skittles in paradise! It is sometimes white wine and prawns ;-)
Cheers Simon
......POSTSCRIPT
Since my participation in the research yesterday (topic "Perceptions of time amongst extended holiday makers" or similar) I have been reflecting on the topic. Something that occurred to me during the interview was the greater refelction on the past and an almost lack of planning for the future, something totally reversed in my life now that I am not working. Previously it was plan, plan, plan, next project and the one after.... now I have lots of random thoughts comparing life today and that of our forebears. I guess this in part is a greater exposure to history than previously.
As mentioned we had some minor excitment during the mornings fishing, with the up close and personal with the stingray. A day or so earlier at the Barramundi Centre I was looking at the varioius bags and purses made of bara skin, sting ray skin etc, and did not believe the patterns to be real, however after seeing the ray this morning I know know they can have the most amazing skin. Appologies for the poor quality photo.
Leopard skin Stingray
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