Fishing for Trout

Well, as you may have heard, the trout were definately on top of me. 2 days of hours worth of trawling around the water hoping that i was doing it right, praying for a fish! NOPE! nothin!

I found out there are a heap of yabbies in the dam, so i tossed in 2 harbour bridge pots and after an hour i pulled in over 30 yabbies. Bummer we don't eat em, Tez would be very annoyed to know that no one wanted them around the park and all went back in the water the next night after another day of trying to fish with them as live bait.



Then I found my neighbours in the park were cleaning up each morning, bagging out with 5 trout each for the last couple of days. Chris and Gav invited me to come out on Aussie day morning to learn a thing or two. Of course I was headed out with them.









I had to meet the boys at 5am to take down the boat and lauch for a 4 hour run. In  the water by 515 and with no light and only the GPS to guide us away from the islands, we trawled around for an hour with not much action, and a few lost lures from snags. Chris said the fish seem to be at this time of year around the 35 feet deep mark. I thought it was just my luck that they would not catch a thing!







 Chris downsized the amount of rods from 6 messy rigs to 4 definate lines. 2 we sent down on separate down riggers to sit at 35 foot and 40 foot depths with about 40 feet of line dragging a trout lure of different colours.










One of the other rigs was made of lead line (3colours long) attatched to braid either end and dragging a similar lure. The other was a Chris special which was a basic Cod lure attached strait to braid but instead of 2 trebbles, he removed the front trebble and off the back he attached about a foot or 2 of leader and attached a basic fly. With this, the lure got the fly down to the depth required and then attracted the fish, which then the trout attacked the fly.

After about an hour we got a few small hook ups, but I lost them. I felt pretty bad, but then found out i just use the drag and not pull too hard. Gav pulled in the first Rainbow trout which was a decent size so we drove for not much more till I was on. At one stage we had a double hook up, one getting off, the other I dragged in a great sized Brown trout and to Chris' surprise it was on his special lure. I pulled in another rainbow which was only small and Chris and Gave brought in 2 rainbows each. we also caught a few salmon, 4 in total, but they are pest fish in Chris' eyes and all went straight back.

I was pretty chuffed because i finally got the trout that i was chasing. Yew Yew!

Stayed out till about 930 or so and came in and the boys cleaned them up. Great Aussie Day all round. Even better, we got back, started drinking at 12 noon and didn't stop till 10pm! 

Shoalhaven - Canberra - Jindabyne

Another week and another 1000km or so.

Monday we woke to a fairly horrible day, so neither of us were in any rush to get out of bed and that had nothing to do with my hangover! Finally we got up, and set out for a drive down to Batemans Bay. We bypassed Jervis bay(which we later found out is part of the ACT, all capital cities need a port and Jervis Bay is ACT's. Little fact that was given to us by ACT's finest!) Drove on down to Sussex Inlet, Swan Haven, Cudmirrah, and Berrara. Backtracked out to Mollymook and Ulludulla. Weather had not cleared at all and was still a horrible wet and windy day, so we had a cafe lunch and called it quits. Never made it any further south. Bought blue plastic skid strips for the boat on the top of my roof, makes it so much easier to get the boat off and on now.

Tuesday, woke to have a cruisy morning of washing and packing up for tomorrows move. Headed out for lunch to shell Harbour to meet up with Toni, Amelie and Ben Smith. Great few hours of catching up and quite a few beers. Headed back to camp to pull down the tarp and pack the boat for easy pack up. Went for a walk down to the beach, and watched some guy beach worming.

Wednesday, New day new place. packed up and left Shoalhaven by 10. Travelled west and hit Berry for breakfast. Berry is an awesome place with a small country town feel. Bought a few things in a little Cuckoo clock shop that had most its items imported from either Germany or other countries around that region. Really cool, but the service was not something to brag about! We left there headed for Canberra. the GPS took us on the most direct route out through Goulburn, but took us on some hairy small windy roads that had us crawling in first gear pushing the cars towing capabilities to their limits. Made it through and got to a few small towns like Kangaroo valley that were very nice. Drove on for a few hours and stopped for a quick pic of the big Marrino in Goulburn, man it has big Nuts! Continued to Canberra and found the park we had booked into in the suburb of O'conner. The site they had booked us on was a drive thru site which was all cement, we tried to get another, but they had nothing that suited us, so we told them to bash it and asked for our money back! NOPE to that as they said there is no refund, so we lost the first nights, accomodation. Went to the south side of town to Fyshwick and stayed in the South Canberra Motor Inn which was a large park, we had a large unpowered area to set up in. Headed down to Tuggeranong to go shopping for the next few days after we finished setting up.


 Thursday, i had my car booked into Nissan in Tuggeranong for the 40000km service. Drove down early and then caught a bus into the city for some sight seeing. Got off in the city and walked about 10 blocks up to the war memorial. Walked around looking at stuff for a few hours and finished off by putting 2 poppies in the names list up top. We scanned through the names, and found 2(although not our real pops) but on a A Barnes, and a W Everett. caught a bus back to the city and decided to head back to Tuggeranong and wait for the car. Did a bit of shopping at the westfield and then caught a movie at the cinema(The Dilemma)which was quite good. Car was complete, $860 later, we headed out and through the city to Black mountain and paid to go up the Telecom Tower. Headed back into the city to have a beer and quick punt at the Casino. Headed back to Fyshwick for dinner and bed.

Following pics from the Australian War Memorial

  Friday, Late start. Did some washing then headed out to have a look at Cockington Greens. This awesome little place makes model houses and scenes from around the world in miniature forms. Amongst it all is awesome gardens and lawns, my dad would be very proud! Headed to Belconnen to do some shopping and look at the local farmers markets.  Had some lunch and headed back for a chill out arvo. 
 Headed down to the suburb of Conder to meet up with friends, Ben,Tamara and little Dominic. Headed back to the city for dinner at the Uni Bar with them and then on for a few cocktails at another bar just around the corner. Headed home at about 10.

Saturday, Woke around 8, packed and set off for a new place to call home. Headed south down to Cooma, then on to Jindabyne. Just on the outskirts of town we pulled in for a look at the Big 4 Holiday park. Looked at the sites before booking in. picked a good site, under a tree, close to amenities, looking down over the lake. We rushed the set up, as it looked like storming any second. A few rain drops was all we got during the set up, but in the arvo, a storm came through with heavy rain and small hail! No damage to anything luckily. Chilled out to dinner and watched tennis, washed down with a few rums! Bed to watch a movie (Brooklyn's Finest)which was rubbish, I don't recommend it!

 Sunday i woke to a beautiful morning, clear skies, no wind, so i got out of bed, made a coffee and headed down to the lake to chill out and soak up the serenity! Life is tough being a nomad on days like this i can tell you! Woke sharna when banging around with breakfast so got ready and headed to Thredbo. The wind had picked up a lot and we headed up the mountain on the chairlift. Temperature felt like it dropped 20 degrees with the wind chill, but after we put on our rainjackets to stop the wind, the walk was quite pleasant and warm. Walked 2km's to Kosciuszko Lookout, where I considered to turn back because the weather looked like it would bucket down any second. We continued on and were extremely happy we did. We walked the full 6.5km walk uphill to the very top of Kosciuszko.
It obviously took a few hours with absolutely no whingeing from Sharna!!!!We got to the top, 2228metres above see level, to be the very highest people standing on land in Australia at that very moment! So now we have ticked off the most easterly point of Oz, and the Highest point, next will be the most Southerly as we head towards Tassie. The return journey was much easier but by the time we got to the top of the chairlift, a much deserved beer was beckoning. Headed back down the chairlift watching mountain bikers riding down the steep decent underneath. We headed back to chill out, and snooze through the 3rd ODI cricket game. Had a nice dinner and chatted to Grant and Lou, who are camping at Port Macquarie with the 3 kidlets.

Monday, Well finally brings us up to date again. Today is another chill out day. Slept in till after 9 and glad that we did the walk yesterday. Today is windy as hell! so we have done the washing and tidied up, and this afternoon I'm going to take the boat out for some trout fishing. There have been quite a few trout being caught very early morning, with a lot of people getting their bag limit by 7am. How I'm even supposed to be up by 7 is another matter. I am really keen to catch some, so bought some lures and heading out for some trolling this arvo, and a real good go tomorrow morning. I'll keep you posted! but you may have to wait another week to find out if i caught any! As Tez said, His money is on the fish, and to be honest, think mine is too!

Oberon or Katoomba down to Shoalhaven Heads

New day new blog. since the last blog we have done a bit.

After the Jenolan Caves, we got up the next morning to a wet horrible morning. We were planning on spending the day in Katoomba exploring the 3 sisters and spending money riding on Scenic world cable car and railway but the cloud cover was so bad that we could not even see 10 feet in front of us. Instead on the way out we decided to head to Lithgow information centre to see what else was on offer. We decidied on a 4 hour round trip 4WDing towards what they call the glow worm tunnel. The trip out in wet conditions didn't challenge us too much but was definately a great day out. The drive, although was wet was fairly simple. We got to the end and had to walk for half hour but it was definalely worth it. Its hard to show pics cause it is all black with a few lights that look like stars. But in this tunnel it was awesome, 400m tunnel, in the centre you couldn't see either end. With the torches we held, it illuminated the worms and once we turned off the torches the tunnel lit up like the night sky, it was full of star like lights up the walls and covering the ceiling. I have seen a few glow worms before but nothing like this. It was awesome.

Once we left and drove back we dropped into katoomba to see if any sights were visible !!!! NOPE! couldn't see 10m in front of you! oh well!  Drove back for the last night in Oberon.

Next day we woke to have a cruisy pack up. With out the tarp it was easier but still took a few hours since we didn't do anything the night before, we started at 8 and left Oberon at 10:30. I drove to Katoomba where we stopped to see if the sights had cleared up........ NOPE!!! just as bad or worse. We bought a post card for what our picture was supposed to look like, but this is what ours did look like.

We continued to drive down to Woolongong then on to Shoalhaven Heads. After pulling into the caravan park that the Navman told me that it was my destination, only to find we didn't have a booking and the caravan park we were book into was at the end of the street, OOPS!!!

Shoalhaven Park is a great little park sitting on the corner of the ocean and the Shoalhaven River. We set up on a good little site overlooking the boat ramp. The only problem there was a fence between us and some serious fish!! It took us about 3 hours for the full set up, just in time for us to catch the 6pm news of the Brisbane Floods. We spent the next few hours watching in awe of our home town, friends houses, City centre, being destroyed and devastated by the worst natural disaster in over 35 years (although there were a few very thankful thoughts of THANK GOD WE ARE NOT THERE RIGHT NOW!!)

Thurday was our planned chill out day of the week at Shoalhaven, and this we did. We spent the first 5 hours of the day watching the news and looking at Facebook, watching the horrors of the Queensland Floods. The afternoon was made up on a chill out shopping run in Nowra

Friday was supposed to be our Fishing day but after what seemed to be a cyclone wind coming through during the night (4am getting up in your jocks just to check if your home is going to blow away) Not exactly the best day to go fishing! So we decided to go for a drive down towards Jervis Bay. We covered towns of Greenwell point, Culburra Beach, Crook Haven, Currarong, Callala Bay and Beach, and Myola. We stopped here for a picnic lunch and a quick fish. We continued on for a bit to Huskinson, Vincentia, and on to the national park of Jervis Bay(very dissapointed about this place, cost us 10 bucks to drive in and nothing to see, half an hour and 10 bucks of our lives we will never get back) Sharna continued on to St George Basin and back through Nowra home. Dinner and bed for us.

Saturday was an early start so we could get up and get traveling towards Sydney. We decided to travel up and see great mates of Nath and Alicia in Manly. We drove up to Woolongong, missed a turn and had to back track to the town of Coalcliff, in this town we have the "Sea Cliff bridge" we got a few pics and before and then drove over the bridge. great sights!

Then we continued on to Sydney, headed to Bondi for a quick look at the historical beach, and Sharna went for a quick celebrity spotting. Nothin!! Headed across to Manly where we caught up with Nath. Met him at his apartment on the esplanade of Manly foreshore. We all walked up for some lunch at the Award winning Hugo's Restaurant. Nath shouted Lunch (Cheers bro, it won't be forgotten) and we headed back to his pad for a quick chat before heading back to Shoalhaven. Sharns cranked up a quick spag meatball dish before we crashed out for bed.

Sunday(today) was out Proper chill out day, the weather was great, the company was perfect and the fishing was on! I woke to a early leak, only to find Sharna keen to sleep in (something different!) after an hour or more sleep(trust me i wasn't complaining) we got up to get set for a day of fishing. We eventually got out only to find Sharna cleaned up in the fishing tally! She caught a flathead, bream, whiting, SNAPPER( in the river! ) and i got a Flounder and a flathead. All up we got 2 flathead keepers and a whiting.
We gave up fishing

 when we had enough so we headed back for an awesome arvo of Drinkin Rum and watching Cricket. I do believe it was a perfect day! Slept in, went fishing, caught enough for dinner, home early in time to watch the first one dayer, sat outside on a lilo for 6 hours drinking RUM and watching The Aussies win what seems like there first win this year! Awesome effort Watto!!

As usual it has taken me 4 hours to write this, so the pics will be coming in the next few days.

Enjoy!



on the track to the glow worm tunnel.





Our first encounter with a wild wombat! for you kids looking, we are pretty sure he was a sleep!





360 degree view of our home without the tarp.





Going over the Sydney Harbour




View of the Sydney Harbour



Our view of sunset from the camper at Shoalhaven Heads