Bingara and Leyton Sprints

We spent a week at our Daughters in Adelaide, in that time i was able to do some home maintenance for her whilst Vickie & Erin flew to Melbourne for three days to look at wedding dresses for Erin's wedding next year. A visit to Adelaide is never complete without us going to the Central Markets and having lunch at a Chinatown Cafe, they make the best Chicken and Rice and yes we are addicted to it.

Chicken Rice

We have 2 weeks before we get to the Bushtracker factory to have some work done on the Van but we both didn't feel the need to take our time looking around the Murray River again, the nights were very cold and we both just wanted to get where it was warm. We stayed a night at the Forbes Bird hide and a night at Manangatang before pulling in at one of our favourite camp spots, the Gwyder River at Bingara.

Gwyder River Bingara NSW

The Roxy Theater

Bingara Main Street

Bingara holds a special memory as it was where my Mother lived in her later years, she and her 2nd Husband were keen fossickers and loved the small country town. The town has grown with a few nice cafes but basically it's the same as it was 15 years ago. The free camping along the Gwyder River is excellent and the Shire should be congratulated. The nights were freezing but beautiful sunny days, thank goodness we have a diesel heater in the van.

Lamb Shanks and Veggies

Traveling further North we came across Leyton, I have been receiving emails from the Sprints Committee regarding the annual Leyton 'Round the Streets' Sprints for months but didn't give it much thought until we saw the sign showing that the forth coming weekend they were on. The decision was an easy one to stop and take it all in. We arrived on a Wednesday and camped at a large grassed area only a few hundred metres from the Town and the race itself, already there were a few other campers scattered about but we were told that by Friday it would be very busy with up to 15000 spectators and quite a few of them camping for the weekend.

We got ourselves set up in time for another Bushtracker to roll in, Mick & Sue [SMICK] had also decided to attend the Sprints so they set up along side us. The next five days were spent enjoying each others company. The Sprints were on the Saturday & Sunday and i enjoyed walking around the Pitts having a chat with the drivers about their cars. The cars were a diverse lot, everything from a 1926 Amilcar AC to 50's 60's and 70's cars like Escort, MG, Mini, Cortina, Porsche, and some dedicated race cars, Van Diemann , Cheveron and Prosport Eclipse, some of my favourites were the XY GT Falcon, 68 HT Monaro, 1970 Bolwell, a V8 engined 1951 Morris 1000.

64' EH Holden

67' Ford Mustang

71' XY Falcon

68' HT Monaro

72' HQ Holden

69' Datsun 1600

65' XP Falcon

64' VW Beetle

51' Morris 1000 [V8]

75' Ford Escort [V8]

70' Morris Mini

64' Ford Cortina GT

70' Bolwell Mk7

The days were beautiful and sunny but the evenings were quite cold, we had a camp fire each evening and were joined by another couple Kevin and Jan whom the SMICKS had met previously. It's a small World as Kevin was ex RAAF and knew a Pilot friend of ours. Sue also had a connection as she lived not far from where i grew up and knew many mutual friends way back in the 60's. There is a saying about 6 degrees of separation, I describe that as yack on enough and your bound to know someone they know, its a Small World.

We left Leyton on Monday and drove through to Kenilworth, we stayed the night at Little Yabba which is only 6klms out of Kenilworth. Superbly maintained by the Shire it is a magic spot, today we have come into town to stay at the Showground and catch up on all the washing. We intend to stay here until Monday when we take the Van into BushTracker to have some additions done.

River at Little Yabba

Camp, Little Yabba Park

Beautiful Moreton Bay Fig Tree, Planted 1937

The Lifestyle Continues - August 2012

After three weeks at home catching up on some jobs and spending time with our grand daughters we were both itching to get back on the open road, Home this time involved everyone having the Flu, except me. Our youngest grand daughter Eve had to spend a night in the Children's Hospital undertaking many tests, a very worrying time for everyone but everything came back negative and  she bounced back quickly which was a huge relief. Vickie suffered, having the flu for 10 days before she came good.

Our plan was originally to head across on the Great Central Road to Alice and on up to North Qld but as we have found out many times that our plans change almost as soon as we make them. Instead of doing what we thought we would do, we headed East across the Nullabour for what seems like the thousandth time but more like a number between 30 and 40 trips back and forth. This time the purpose was to head to Adelaide and visit our youngest daughter Erin, Vickie and Erin were then flying to Melbourne to look at Wedding Dresses for Erin's wedding next year at Kho Samui Thailand. I don't understand why Melbourne, I'm sure they sell dresses in Adelaide but Erin is a Qantas Crew Member and the airfares are cheap and flying is the same as driving somewhere for her these days.

But before getting to Adelaide we had a lovely relaxing drive and stayed four night's in the bush enjoying lovely camp fires and camp oven cooked meals along the way. That simple experience is what i enjoy the most, the ability to be away from the maddening crowds, out in the bush, camp fire burning, birds flying in for a visit and the serenity. Saying that we also have a Satellite dish and a diesel heater in the van so once the outside temperature drops down, an hour or two of catching up on what has happened in the Olympics top's our evening off.

 

Sunrise 

We left Monday and arrived on Friday, the weather was sunny but chilly nights, we saw two other Bushtrackers camped up along the way but didn't get the opportunity to say G'day.

We leave Adelaide on the weekend and making our way North. What roads we take we have no idea,

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.