Anyone Fishing?

[cape man]

Can't wait when the emoji is used.

[BarraMan]

Can't wait when the emoji is used.

Brutal!
Exhausting!
Frustrating!
Exciting!
Scary!
Epic!


Heaven and Hell - in a fishing trip! All home safe and sound though!

[Fuzz]

I am thinking this is going to be good

[fallguy1000]

I hope you got more than a sunburn, cuz a sunburn can be all of those things! Okay, not so exciting..

[BarraMan]

OK, its going to take a bit for me to get this together. I am currently sorting through photos and video when not cleaning the boat.

Here's a sample!

DAY 1 [Home in Townsville to Cloncurry (The Curry!) - 500 miles]
Set off on a 1250 mile journey from home to the McArthur R in the Northern Territory.
About 90 miles from home I broke a spring on the boat trailer. Took 4 hrs on the side of the road in 100F heat to replace it.
Then near my destination for the night I got a warning on the dash of the Discovery, "Worn brake pads"! A bit of a surprise because it had just been serviced. I went easy on the brakes for the remainder of the trip - using the trailer brakes to slow the rig when possible.
On arrival at my motel for the night, the trailer brakes locked up as I turned into the driveway. Seems that I somehow pulled out the 'breakaway pin' on the trailer brakes as I turned in - and they did what they are designed to do - lock up the trailer brakes. Put the pin back in - good to go!



DAY 2 to follow!

[cape man]

TRAILERS!!!

But now that I think, we'll call this the trailer for the full story!

[BarraMan]

DAY 2 [The Curry to the Heartbreak Hotel Roadhouse - 620 miles]
An easy one!
Got an early start. Breakfast in the Cloncurry Roadhouse. 80 miles for a stop in Mt Isa at 09:00, a copper silver lead and zinc mining town, to pick up my younger son Stuart and a fishing mate Craig and continue the journey west.
Fuel stop at Camooweal on the Queensland-Northern Territory border.
Lunch and another fuel stop at the Barkly Homestead Roadhouse (BHR), before heading 250 miles north up the Tableland Hwy to the Heartbreak Hotel Roadhouse (HBH) for fuel and an overnight stop. This has to be one of the loneliest, rotten roads in the NT. Narrow breaking-up bitumen seal. Black soil shoulders. Occasional road-trains (prime mover and 3 x 40' trailers) that you have to get right off the road for to let them get past. You guys talk about "18 wheelers"! We have 70 wheelers!
An uneventful arrival at the HBH in the late afternoon. Diner and bed - early start next day!

[fallguy1000]

If you travel in Ontario, they come down 1.5 wide lanes with 18 wheeler with logs going 40 mph and you basically pull over and squeeze your butt cheeks and duck hoping a log won't be too wide and clip the truck windshield.

It is no fun, but sometimes a hidden lake is worth it.

[BarraMan]

DAY 3 - An interesting one!
Early start. 95 mile drive from the Heartbreak Hotel Roadhouse to the King Ash Bay Fishing Club. Move into our cabin for the week. Unpack the car and boat.





Early afternoon we ran the 20 nm down the McArthur R, out into the gulf and headed east to Lousy Ck. The plan was for the 3 of us to o/night in the boat and get an early start on the morning low tide. Its about 10 nm from the mouth of the McArthur to the mouth of Lousy.
Out in the Gulf it was blowing from the E at 15 kts gusting to 20. The gulf is very shallow and at low tide you are often running along in 4-5 ft of water, and it really stands up in a bit of wind.
We were handling it OK until close to where we turn into the creek (the asterisk on the map below). I was just thinking about turning around when we took two waves over the bow - and suddenly we had 6" of water in the cockpit!
I made the mistake of stopping! Two more waves over the bow and we had a foot of water in the cockpit and a wallowing boat! Three electric bilge pumps kicked in at 4750 gal/hr!
My fishing mate Craig, a former pro-fisher, took the helm and powered the boat through 180 degrees to get the bow up and out of the waves and kept it clear of the then following sea. I jumped on the manual bilge pump and pumped like crazing! ]
It only took a few minutes to clear the water from the cockpit and get the boat safe and secure again, but we all got a bit of a fright! The boat is theoretically unsinkable and should remain upright if swamped - but I never want to test that theory!





We all agreed that the best course of action was to head back to the cabin, the air-conditioning ........... and cold beer!
Tomorrow is another day!

PS: I don't know why all of our tracks aren't showing on the GPS tracker.

[OrangeQuest]

Sounds like that could have been poopy pants time!