And whilst I realise that this could blur the lines with B's more pictorial orientated posts on Facebook, I can assure Future Matt that I won't miss any truly important moment.
And so with that, here is a pictorial walkthrough of our two days in Carnarvon and the surround areas, including the Quobba Blowholes...
Note: All pictures are in order that they were taken, so you can essentially see the days "evolve"
27/5/17
After a stroll around the pretty uninspiring but well intentioned markets, the boys and I decided we'd go and fish off the local "jetty". Like Busselton, this jetty has a train on it. And for damn good reason as it's a solid mile out to the far end. No surprises where the boys wanted to fish... Yep... right at the end! So off we walked... Pfft... train.
Meanwhile we had left the girls in town to walk the boardwalk to the jetty. This was part of the original train from the jetty and covers the mouth of the Gascoyne River that runs through town.
Did I mention, like yesterday it was blowing an absolute gale?!? And then imagine it a mile offshore... Yep... It was blowy. With literally the first cast of his rod (well, we just let it fly off in the wind...) James jagged the biggest bream of the trip. Here we see Sam desperately trying to measure it with his fish ruler we got given from one of the info centres. You will also notice another bream on the jetty, slightly smaller. This was one I pulled in whilst trying to get my handline out of the way of James reeling! We were on!!
"Windy enough to blow a dog off a chain?" Pfft... Change it to:
"Windy enough to blow a bream off a hook!"
Still, I love the look in his face... He still talks about this fish. Unfortunately 2cm short of legal so back he went.
B had reached the bottom of the jetty at this point we were already on our way back in after only 15min of fishing. James pulled in another bream but it simply was too windy and with the wind chill factor, even fish coming in hand over fist couldn't convince the boys...
And that was pretty much that. In the afternoon I grabbed some peace and quiet doing the "big shop" at Woolies, and we all settled down to watch The Incredibles on movie night outside the van. Two nights in a row with the TV?!? What luxury!
28/5/17
Up the next morning, the park put on pancakes for charity. Damn... I need to subcontract these guys out as it was the quickest way to get the kids out of bed and dressed in a long time!! And really, it was all you could eat pancakes... I think the baton is being passed as Evie and Sam both matched my 4 pancakes with ice cream...
Out to Quobba Blowholes for the morning/day. Here the coastline is being eroded in such a fashion that water rushes in through sub-surface holes and pushes air and water up through blowhole. Unfortunately for us, we arrived pretty much at high tide, which as we found was pretty much the crappiest time to arrive.
Wait for it....
...ummm... 'boom'?
To be honest, I was a little uninspired but I suppose it would be awesome at low tide. Still, high tide allowed us to watch the surf smash the coast in pretty fantastic fashion.
And the rocks and terrain here was quite unique and difficult to traverse. I'm glad I, unlike the others, switched from thongs to shoes before heading across it.
It was kind of cool watching the water come in and out of this hole like a huge sink hole...
Following on, we drove around the point (could have walked we found) and found this beautiful bay that seemed like it was custom made for snorkelling. B busted out the 'norkel and flippers, the kids played on the water, whilst I went for a stroll up to the point where I took this shot. From here I could see into the crystal clear water and it was like snorkelling without getting wet. Brilliant! No fishing allowed though as it's a sanctuary zone.
One the walk back to the beach, I found these two pieces of coral/rock. It was like a polaroid snaphot in time of geology. From shells and coral, into rock, which will ultimately turn back into sand and soil...
Waiting for B to return from snorkelling... tough place to wait.
On our way back from Quobba, we decided we'd stop at this roadside stop by Gascoyne River for lunch. We crossed the river and I wanted to have a look at how a river so large and wide can remain dry for half the year!! It was immense and surely must be a site when running full bore...
I told Sam if he wanted to fish he could, and he went and grabbed the rod as a joke, and he fished off the pump house platform! Keen angler....
I managed to find a spot down the bank (and yep, did go A-over-T at one stage) and strolled out to the middle. The was just one amazing site... Not a single tree or plant and hardly any driftwood strewn across the riverbed! And this shot was taken from...
...here. Can you see me way out in the middle?
Once we got back, Sam pleaded to go fishing, but we agreed the big jetty was too much of a task. So we went exploring and found the marina's boat ramp and decided we'd try out luck here. And what a choice. Sam won the comp here with 11 to 9 fish, mostly small bream. I love this shot of Sam... he was practically down here before I got out of the car. And I did say they were 'mostly' small...
There was this fella Sam caught! Had the little rod bent over near 90 degrees and I knew Sam had a sizable fish. A truly impressive fish, Sam was ever so proud, as he should be and was stoked that when we measured him, he was 3cm longer than legal. Mum would be getting fish for dinner!!!
Sam showing James the difference between his fish and the 'small' one off the big jetty. Nothing like a bit of brotherly competition.
And that was the day. Sam and B cleaned and gutted the fish whilst I went and got some awesome chips from the local chippy and we had 'real' fish and chips. Was such a good moment, we treated the kids to another movie, Finding Dory which none of us had seen. Not a patch on the first, but still, pretty entertaining.
No comments:
Post a Comment