Week Ten Day Sixty Eight

Long Tom!


The one that chased the fish that was hooked.


The potato cod on the hook and the larger one chasing it.

The children and Leila on the bauxite shelf.

The rock formations in the cove.

Sorry Coral bay, but you have been relegated to second favourite spot. Well done
Cape Arnhem you have just made it to first spot in our personal "best place in Aus" .

We left the main road out of Nhulunbuy and entered this 4x4 track. Now over the last few days we have traversed over some nail biting roads, but this one promised to be the worst. After about 30 min's of been thrown around we stopped to let air out of the tyres, as the second half of the journey was beach sand riding.

Wow the views were beautiful. The sand was white, the sea azure in colour, islands standing serenely in the calm sea. We stopped off at a cove with the most interesting rock formations. We went down to the waters edge, watched fish swim in the shallows and watched a clam dig into the sand.

We carried on with our bone wrenching journey (it was fun) and arrived at the Cape. We unpacked the table and chairs and had lunch, under the trees overlooking this pristine setting. A special permit is required to visit Cape Arnhem, as only a few vehicles are allowed on a daily basis. We were the only people there.

After lunch we walked onto the bauxite shelf that ran along the water edge. We investigated the rock pools and stared in awe at the "drop off", A Bauxite shelf that suddenly dropped to approximately 10 meters . Oh to be able to snorkel here would be fantastic. Three things stopped us, stingers, crocodiles and sharks. The coral bombs and reef fish abounded and it was amazing to watch the fish swimming along the rock face.

We got to a place on the rock where there was just deep water. The fishing rods were baited and we were soon fishing. Adam (nephew) was the first to catch a trevally, unfortunately this was lost. He lost interest after that and went off exploring with Jillian (sister-in-law), Hannah (niece) and Hope.

We saw turtle and John saw a bull shark about 5 foot long swimming along the shelf. We had a fantastic time, Wendy's dad, brother Francois and Wendy caught Sweetlip Emperor. Wendy caught two of these. John caught a Long Tom (similar to Gar Fish) and about an 8kg Potato Cod. When he was pulling out the potato cod, we noticed that there was a bigger fish underneath it. To us, it looked as if it was going to try and grab it off the hook. From the photo's that Wendy took, it looks as if it was also a Potato Cod weighing about 40kg's.

Potato Cod is a protected species so we threw it back in where it joined the one waiting for it.

What a beautiful day in an amazing place, we are very privileged to have experienced the natural beauty of an unspoilt area of Australia.

On Thursday we will be leaving Nhulunbuy with a lot of memories to carry on with our journey. Wendy's parents are taking our car from Darwin back to Sydney, we have decided to add a twist to our journey. We will be catching "The Ghan" from Darwin to Alice Springs. From Alice Springs we will be taking a tour to the "Olga's" and to "Uluru". As the Ghan does not stop at Coober Pedy, we will be catching the Greyhound bus to Coober Pedy, were we will be staying in an underground motel.

Back on the greyhound to Adelaide and we have not decided yet how we will get back to Sydney. So we will keep you informed.

Hope's Blog.......... I had great fun exploring the caves along the beach. We found a sea anemone, which sucked at our fingers. There was also lots of crabs and Hannah and Adam picked up a dead one. We walked for a long time and when we got back my legs where sore. I had lots of fun.