Ningaloo - Home July 2012

Ten weeks seemed to go by so fast, before we knew it our time at Ningaloo was over for another year. 2012 will go down as being great because we had our daughter Erin and partner Scotty join us for the 1st ten days and followed by our son Daniel and his partner Elle and their baby daughter Eve stay with us for the last fortnight of our stay. It was great having them see what we have been talking about all these years but unfortunately the weather didn't play the game and 2012 will go down as being the windiest we have experienced it along with the least amount of fish caught.

The weather was a pain but it didn't stop us from Kayak fishing most days and beach fishing most nights, we managed to get in some snorkeling on the better days and both Dave & Daniel had a shark experience. Dave and i were snorkeling together and we had just arrived at a large coral bomby when Dave shouted to me SHARK, i was looking around for it but couldn't see it, i looked around to ask Dave where and what size but Dave wasn't there ... the Buddy system to Dave apparently means SEE YA BUDDY as he was swimming to shore at a rate that would get him into the Olympics, Err thanks Mate!!

As it turned out i didn't set eye's on it and survived. It wasn't the only time Dave saw SHARKS, the next i was out on the Kayak with my back to Dave who had just returned to shore to fix his rig, I could hear him hollering SHARK but i had already seen a pod of dolphins swim past me so i wasn't concerned, a few more shouts and i thought I'd better see what he is on about so i turned around just as he pointed to a dolphin coming to the surface ...... I guess better safe than sorry and we had a good laugh about it later.

Dan's experience was when he was snorkeling by himself, he came back to camp looking a bit shaken and explained that a shark swam straight at him, not a large one around 1.2mt but he swears it looked like a small Great White! My view is any Shark swimming at you is enough to scare the shizen out of you and made for another good camp fire story.

A small amount of rigs salvaged along with Trevor's broken rod taken by a large Shark one night

Dan, Elle and baby Eve asleep

Tube Mouth

Elle, Dan and Madison

Underwater

Maddi and Elle

Dan had his birthday at Ningaloo, it's been a few years since we have been able to celebrate with him as we are usually away at that time of year and baby Eve enjoyed her 1st Ningaloo holiday, being only 10 weeks she didn't do much other than eat, sleep and want to be picked up and Vickie [Nana] and i [Poppy] were happy to oblige. She is absolutely gorgeous with big blue eyes, a very placid nature that she has inherited from her parents.

Dan's 1st Ningaloo fish, a Charlie Court

Charlie Court or Chinaman Cod

Another combined cook off, we ate well

Holding onto Poppy

Our latest grand daughter Eve

Happy Birthday Dan

 We ate extremely well as usual, we had theme nights along with progressive dinners

Trevor's Asparagus and Cheese Entree

Ashley's stuffed Mushroom Entree

Jo's Chicken Cacciatore

Vickie's Apple Berry Pie

Mick's Salt and Pepper Squid

Vickie did her usual of late ...... requiring to be taken to Hospital, it was during one of our Fish and Chip nights at Billy's camp that Vick thought she was having a heart attack, 7 sharp pains in her chest when breathing in. Being already on medication for angina and blood pressure we decided to phone Exmouth Hospital but after being put through to an after hours interstate medical care and trying to explain to them what she had experienced and the fact we were wilderness camping when they kept asking for a post code we decided to drive into Exmouth at 9pm, a two hour drive with lots of roo's and sheep on the roads. Arriving at Hospital the Nurses quickly had her attached to a ECG machine and checking her vitals, everything appeared normal and all they could tell her that it was probably reflux, [no reflection on Billy's cooking, but we refer to it as BFS - Battered Fish Syndrome], Vickie was discharged out but the Hospital wanted her to stay in town the night, It was our intention to do so anyway to save the night drive back to camp but everything was closed, the Big 4 Van Park answered our phone call but told us Company policy was no admissions after 9pm, no change in attitude even after explaining our situation - Thanks BIG 4 for nothing ...... We were even pulled over by the local Police as they had seen our vehicle driving around late at night, we told them what we were doing, they were sympathetic but still gave me a random breath test which was negative. Try the Novatel they said, "No Thanks not at a couple of hundred dollars a night and already past 11pm" so we drove back to camp arriving after 1am.

The rest of our time was fairly uneventful, we felt bad for Dan and Elle having windy weather and poor fishing but sometimes that's just the way it goes, we will be back again next year and hope the rest of the extending families can join us again.

Another night, another Shark

The Hitchhiker

Heading home we camped south of Carnavorn whilst Dan & Elle stayed at a van park with their tent where they were charged $38 for an unpowered tent site, the next night Dan & Elle joined us and we stayed at Geoff and Vickie's in Geraldton where we not only got to use their caravan for the night they fed us the best fish and chips and crayfish for tea, Thanks Mates it was greatly appreciated.

Geoff's Fish and Chips

Dan and Elle left for Perth the next morning and we slowly made our way down the new coast road stopping a night at Moore River bridge. We went to sleep listening to the rain on the roof and planning on how long we would be at home before hitting the road again, we are hoping three weeks to complete some jobs that require doing and then head across to SA and then make our way up to North Queensland until November then back to Adelaide for Vickie's [hopefully] last eye operation.

Ningaloo June 2012

The 5th of June already? We can't have been here five weeks already !! Where have the days gone?

Life here has been described in previous updates as being like Ground Hog Day, but that suits us fine. Our days consist of Kayaking, Fishing, Snorkeling, and also just sitting around either reading, doing all the small jobs that require doing and just plain chilling out.

Nothing exceptional comes to mind when it involves Fishing, in fact this would likely be the most unsuccessful fishing time at Ningaloo yet, not that bothers us as we don't come here to fill the freezers and the fish that we have caught have been fun and i enjoy just taking photo's of them regardless of what type or size they are.

 

Trev's Goat Fish

Grinner Fish

 Not sure what this is.

 A Charlie Court


A Red Throat

Small Shark, i believe a long nose Grey Shark

A larger version

I have finally used a fish smoker that Erin bought me 2 or 3 years ago, I'm kicking myself i didn't try it out then. Vickie and i have caught some Golden Trevally and a couple of Queen fish and they have been superb cooked in the smoker.

 

Smoked Queen Fish

Not catching many quality fish has not stopped us from having some superb Fish & Chip nights, our intermediate neighbour's Brett and Doreen have dropped over a couple of parcels of filleted fish to Dave and Jo for them to share with us. Jo cooks a delicious battered fish and it's one of my favourite Ningaloo meals.

Joanne's camp cooked 'Charlie Court' - Delicious

Our Neighbour's to the North, Murray & Debbie have also been generous and shared some freshly caught squid with us, we have tried 'squiding' ourselves but our luck is not with us this year, still it's early days and with still 5 or 6 weeks to go our luck may change and 2012 could be our best yet, time will tell.

2012 may also be the best year for the Richmond Tigers in a long time, i have enjoyed watching them finally become competitive and to see them beat our son in law's team Hawthorn was a great pay back to follow it up with another win over St Kilda was great fun watching it on the Satellite TV.

Picture tells the story

And down go St Kilda

We are expecting Trev to be back on Thursday, the poor bugger had to drive himself to work for his shift on the mines, Ashley has stayed in camp with Jo & Dave and the three girls are possessed with playing cards during the times they are not in or on the water. Vickie's lower back has played up again and she has had to rest a few days, a similar thing happened here last year and it was a trip into the Exmouth Hospital so we are hoping that it settles down with out treatment. We are planning on going into town tomorrow, the weather has turned unsettled with showers and dark sky's, a walk along the beach flicking lures produced nothing but it filled in an hour or two.

 

Dave and Golden Trevally

 

Vickie is on to another 

A family camped up the beach from us spotted our car and it's number plates and said to me "your the reason we are here at Ningaloo, I read your blog" well with over 56,000 hits i suppose i was bound to bump into someone who had visited. Nice people too and they enjoyed themselves which is always great to hear.

 Bernie and Family

 Followed on from last year we had another gourmet Pizza night, I love pizza and these are so much better than any shop bought, stick this in front of me and don't stand in my way.

In three weeks time we have our Son, Daniel and his Fiance Elle along with their new baby Evie joining us, we are looking forward to that, lets hope the weather turns it on along with the fishing.

NIKNOFF - NINGALOO 2012

We all know that time doesn't stop and sure enough with patience - yeah right .... the time came around for us to hook up the BushTracker and make our way North to spend 11 weeks along the coast at Ningaloo.

The hip replacement went well, chalk and cheese compared to my other hip that was replaced 7 years ago. Bending is an issue and one that frustrates the hell out of me, it's bad enough not being able to be flexible in the hips but my lower spine was fused many years ago and is increasingly becoming worse, but that is not enough to stop me heading to Paradise.

We left home after assuring our granddaughters Millana and Ruby that we would return sometime in July and would continue to send them post cards while away. Our 1st night on the road was heaven or as close as we could get, camping opposite the New Norcia Benedictine Monastery, we had a very peaceful night even the occasional trucks that went past didn't bother us. After living in the van at home for four months near a busy road with the usual idiots doing their burnouts, a night in the 'bush' was bliss.

We had intended visiting our Mates Geoff and Vickie in Geraldton on Saturday but a phone call changed that to "get here tomorrow" so that's what we did. As we drove into their road we got a call on the phone, it was from another mate Tony Harding who was driving past and saw our rig and recognized the number plates, a quick chat on the side of the road and he had to head off back to the farm. Now our last visit to Geoff and Vickie's ended in a bit of stress when i was left to get the van out of their driveway, a narrow drive and tight turn at the end was not a lot of fun. This time Geoff assured me he would be there for the departure, so in we went. No problems, Vickie entertained us for the few hours until Geoff arrived home from work and then we spent the night reliving our many tales of each other.

Saturday Geoff and Vick drove us around Geraldton and districts which was great and very appreciated, another beautiful meal of Baldchin Groper and wedges for tea Saturday night topped off a great day.

Sunday Morning, after a Delicious Bacon and Egg breakfast it was time for us to head off and with Geoff's help on the two way radio we soon had the rig backed out on to the road, waving our farewells.

We continued on and spent that night at Bush Bay south of Carnarvorn, we had stayed at New Beach in the same area when we came up last year and i was apprehensive about the weather as when it rains around here the ground quickly turns to slop as it did last year. But no need for concern as the night was clear and apart from a Dog or Dingo stealing one of Vickie's new leather sandals the night was peaceful.

Sunrise view from the Van's bed

Next day a quick shop in Carnarvorn and re-fill of the diesel tanks we continued on to Ningaloo arriving at the homestead around 3pm, another 45 minutes and we were driving into South Lefroy Bay our home for the next 11 weeks. We quickly set up the awning and unloaded some gear and just had enough time for a sunset drink toasting ourselves and just how lucky we are to be able to be in such a magnificent part of Australia.

Not much time for a rest the next day as i had to drive back out to the main road and pick up our Daughter Erin and Fiancee Scott who had flown into Exmouth from Adelaide for a 10 day stay. Flying in the could not bring much gear so our camp had to have double of most things except we got the VAN! they got the TENT ...

Erin Snorkeling

Scott Fishing at Sunset

 The weather was lovely for the 1st few days and then the wind started blowing, not enough to stop us doing anything but it did take the edge of the beauty of the Ocean, still they both swam & snorkeled, used the Kayaks and went fishing. The Billy's had arrived a few days into their stay and that was excellent, we had a few good nights, fishing and though Scotty didn't get his Big Hook Up that he was after he did get onto some large fish only to be busted off, a nice Spangled Emperor caught out of the Kayak and small shark off the beach were good catches though . Our last night fishing we all got onto big fish but it was only Dave that managed to get a good sized GT onto the beach after a 30 minute fight. After the usual photos it went back to live another day.

 Me with Dave's GT

Our stay coincides with my Birthday and what better place to celebrate, the girls spoilt me all day and we had my favourite Lasagna for tea followed by the largest Cup Cake i have seen. Thank you all.

Happy Birthday To Me

Well the 10 days have been and gone, with us only having the Ute, Dave and Jo kindly drove Erin and Scotty into Exmouth where we did some more shopping before taking them to the airport for their flight back. We loved having you, in the short time you were here we hope you saw what we see and look back on it with fond memories.

 Our Beautiful baby, We love you Infinity