Perth to Coral Bay

We had been planning a family trip up north for over 6 months with our daughter Corinna, her husband Seamus, our two-year old granddaughter Sianna, Molly the dog, Linda and me.

So, we loaded up two cars, one caravan and one boat and headed off.

Set up at Cliff Head

First overnight stop was Cliff Head free camp just south of Dongarra - great spot on the ocean if the wind isn’t up. As Corinna and Seamus had not been to the Pinnacles, they took a tour while we continued up to Cliff Head with van, granddaughter and hound.

Stayed at Cliff Head many times over the years and it’s still one of the nicer free camps as you head north. We were still feeling the winter cold at Cliff Head and the firewood we brought from home was well appreciated by all.

Morning tea at Galena Bridge

Next morning saw us on the road early as we had to cover a fair distance to Edaggee Free Camp just 100 km south of Carnarvon.

This allowed us to get into Carnarvon early enough to do some last-minute shopping at reasonable prices before arriving at the more expensive Coral Bay.

Edaggee Camp

Edaggee roadside stop-over is a well organised and clean site with concrete table and chairs, clean long drop dunnies and lots of bins and fireplaces – a credit to the local shire. This was the second night in our swags for Linda and I and despite a beautiful starlight night around an hour from sunrise we copped heavy rain and strong winds. Luckily our swags were waterproof, as our daughter and hubby (tucked up in their caravan) didn’t even check how us old folk were going and left us to fight the perils of the elements!

Wake me when we get there!

Onward to Carnarvon for some retail therapy, hot chicken rolls on the Fascine for lunch, and then back on the road for the last 250 km run to Coral Bay. Watch out for next blog in our Coral Bay stay.


Short video is HERE

Tamala WA

Our patch of beach

After almost 12 months of planning we headed off to Three Bays camping spot on Tamala Station (Tamala). Its quiet a trip from Collie (just over 1,000km) so we did the trip up in three stages - Collie to our site van at South Yunderup, thence in convoy to Geraldton and then into Tamala Station.






Talk about everything including the kitchen sink! Two cars, one trailer, and one boat all packed to the hilt with:

four gazebos, two car fridges, beer, tucker-box freezer, beer, bait (yep that smelly stuff), generator, a weeks supply of wood, beer, a weeks’ supply food, BBQ, gas cooker, beer, 100 litres of extra fuel, 120 litres of water, fishing tackle, beer, a dozen rods, 2 tents, 6 tables, three porta-loos and tents, beer, solar panels, swags and stretcher beds, cooking utensils, cameras, drones, go-pro, beer, the kitchen sink and most importantly five excited campers.

Tamala sunrise

The road in to Tamala off the main Shark Bay Road transitions from good bitumen, good gravel, corrugated gravel, corrugated gravel and limestone, to corrugated gravel, limestone rocks and deep sandy patches.  There are only a few areas where 4WD is required to be engaged but you would not venture this way without a 4WD and a set of max tracks.





Pulling onto the beach at Three Bays you immediately forget the 1000km trip to get here - two kilometres of flat clean shelly beach with views across the Freycinet Inlet to Three Bays Island and North and South Guano Islands – Wow! They only let three groups book Three Bays camping area at any one time so you have a half a kilometre of beach to yourself.

Pete and Trev getting ready for fishing

I had some concerns before arriving about where I would launch my boat and where I would moor it at night. Turned out a beach launch at the camp was easy and putting out the bow anchor and using a star picket on the stern rope made things pretty simple. Getting the boat out was a little harder but after three attempts using the max tracks we were easily out.

Linda's nice fis

Enough about the camp – let’s get down to the important stuff! The fishing in Freycinet Inlet is famous for the pink snapper and the Inlet lived up to its reputation. As usual when going to somewhere new and there is 1000’s km2 of ocean to drop your line in – it’s a little daunting at first. But after a little bit of experimenting we found a spot that consistently produced – it was around 11km out from camp but hey you know the old fishing axiom – “never leave fish to find fish”. We were blessed by the weather Gods for the whole week we were there – mild nor-easterlies in the mornings and glassed out conditions every afternoon. With twenty pink snapper (most of them over 70cm), two black snapper, and two good size flathead and plenty of “butteries” for bait it was a fishing week to remember. Pete caught the best snapper at 81cm on the first trip out – nice fish and gave his line and arms a stretch!




We did run a little low in a few supplies – bait (lucky Trev brought a BCF store with him!), beer and wood (luckily Rick and Noleen were heading home and did a home (beach) delivery for us).

Great weather, great food, great fires, cold beers, great company , fishing and a fantastic camp spot – Tamala had it all.

Have spent many hours trying to learn my new movie making software – not a gun at it yet but getting there – short video can be found HERE

Alexandra Bridge

One of the locals - came to visit every night

We have always enjoyed camping at Alexandra Bridge Campground on the Blackwood River just outside Augusta. There are 21 designated sites most with metal fire pits and easy access. Facilities include two toilet blocks (both with flushing dunnies - one new and one old), a reasonable boat ramp, drinking water on tap and for day visitors a nice park with free gas BBQ’s. At $10/person/night it’s a little on the pricey side but location location!

A hard earned bream

The Blackwood River is one of the few undammed rivers in southwest WA and at this location is famous for its Black Bream fishing (yep it’s a lure fishing mecca at times) and is the main reason we like camping here.

Grandson showing Pop how to fish

There were 110,000 bream stocked in the river last year and around the same 17 years ago - so 9 out of 10 fish are very small (from last years stock) but if you do hook one of those 17-year-old fish they are monsters. I landed a 39cm specimen the first day out in the water which is close to my personal best.

Look what we caught!

Despite fire restrictions being place for the South West region the local shire (who manage the campground) allow fires from 6:00PM to 11:00PM so we kept warm around the fire most nights.
Great camping spot amongst shady trees on the banks of a beautiful river – nice!!
Made a short movie – have had to learn a new Video Editing Program so not quiet up to my usual standard but getting there – link is
Here

Snottygobble Sojurn

Might have to rename the blue boat - Trout Reaper

Since reading a story in a fishing magazine over a year ago about catching black bream and rainbow trout on the same lure in the same spot on the Donnelly River https://parks.dpaw.wa.gov.au/site/donnelly-boat-landing   in southern WA, my mate John and I had planned a couple of days swaging and fishing to test the story.

Plan was to head off after the school holidays and before the winter rains – so the date was set for mid February.

We camped at Snottygobble (yep weird name – apparently a type of tree with a cold?) camp ground which is about 5km from the boat ramp. There are eleven designated camp areas, most are small areas suitable for tents with tables and fireplaces and there is a basic camp kitchen area and two long drop dunnies. A bonus is the fact that Carey Brook runs just behind the campground and has two easy access tracks to the clean running water – great for a wash after a hard days fishing.

The Donnelly River at this location runs about 10km from the boat ramp the ocean. At this time the entrance was not open and the backed up water level was high and the water almost fresh. It’s a pretty pristine river - narrow at the ramp, opening up to a wider area near the ocean. There are some substantial “shacks” down near the river mouth with some of them having lots of glass, lawns, water, SAT TV, and solar wind generators.

29cm - bugger!

We fished pretty hard for the two morning and afternoon sessions (almost - my mate had a sleep-in on the last morning) that we were camped for a result of around a dozen bream AND three trout on the same lures and location – yep the story in the fishing mag was true – one of the few spots in Australia where bream and trout are located together.

I hooked a decent 50cm trout and after it jumped twice realised this was no black bream.

Snottygobble camp is an easy 170km drive from home so I will definitely be heading there again to chase the elusive 50cm black bream, one of those jumping trout and try and locate a live and growing Snottygobble.

Short video is HERE

Heading Home

70cm of saltwater barramundi

We spent four great weeks up in North Qld enjoying the hospitality and companionship of old friends, family, mates, the dogs and fishing till I had had enough (never! ). Definitely the best Barra fishing I have ever enjoyed with over 35 Barra landed and a personal best Barra of 70Cm.

Sadly all things must come to an end and it was now time to head west for home. I knew that Linda would be chaffing at the bit to get home – so it was “the pedal to the metal” and travelling at the fastest rate we had ever travelled we were soon at Haslam in SA (west side of Eyre Peninsula).

2,836Km in eight days travelling- it took us six months to get to North QLD !

We decided to do travel to home via Broken Hill as we had never been that way before.

The movie at this link is my biggest effort yet using still camera shots, a few drone shots and a lot of dash-cam footage (something I had not thought of using before despite it recording every minute the car was moving).

They don't mince words out in the bush

Outback QLD and NSW is a bloody mess with most paddocks grazed down to dust , almost no stock to be seen (sold or moved) – hopefully the drought will break soon as its getting pretty desperate out there.  I have seen a lot of road kill on our travels but nothing like what is lying on the side of the road between Charleville and Bourke – thousands and thousands of roos (red and grey), hundreds of emus and a smattering of the smarter goats and pigs.

OH&S gone crazy - a dump point is now a confined space?

We never saw anything that looked like grass till we reached Peterborough in SA.

The movie at this link is my biggest effort yet using still camera shots, a few drone shots and a lot of dash-cam footage (something I had not thought of using before despite it recording every minute the car was moving).

Link to my longer than usual video is HERE

Across the Nullarbor in two days’ time – after watching the Eagles win!!

Bedford Weir

Sunset on the McKenzie

Bedford Weir Campground is 26 km from Blackwater on the McKenzie River. We had camped here before in September 2015 to fish in the “Saratoga Spectacular” fishing competition. Long term followers of my travel blog might remember that we were spectacularly unsuccessful in catching any Toga but Linda won $100 in the novelty red claw draw.

We had been keeping in contact with our caravaning friends Steve and Carol who were meandering north from Vic so we met up and headed out to the campground.

Tea break

Linda and I were determined to better our Saratoga record (zero last visit) but after flogging the water to foam for four hours a day for a week only catfish saw the landing net. Time for a change of plan – early in the week Linda had a smashing hit on a spinner bait which looked “toga-erish” so out came the smaller spinner baits and lots more Toga hits. Linda soon had two big 70cm Toga in the net but after 5 hook-ups I still had zero score. 

Catfish Kerry

On the morning of our pack-up day I set out to our favorite spot for a final foray to snatch a sneaky Toga and was finally successful with a 65cm fish netted and photographed 15 min before go home time. Bad news was that on the way back to the ramp my outboard failed and I may have cooked the motor. Last three kilometers was on my little electric motor with breath held wondering if the battery would hold out.

Roast dinner with friends

Enough about fishing – every afternoon/evening we enjoyed the company of our friends Steve, Carol and Roxy (the bull dog) sitting around the camp fire for drinks, cards, cook-ups, more drinks and lots of laughs.

Sad to leave Bedford Weir but we will always have great memories of laughter, food, card comps, wine and beer, camp fires and the occasional elusive Toga.

Made a short video link is HERE

Glebe Weir

The Glebe Weird Mob

We visited Glebe Weir (near Taroom in central Queensland) during our first trip around Australia in 2012. The lure of water-side camping with Saratoga, Yellow Belly, abundant bird life, flushing toilets, and powered sites all for $7/night per van drew us back again this trip.

Unfortunately despite hours out on the water casting spinner baits, walking the dog, jiggling small hard body divers, and even resorting to smelly bait - not a bump or bite was felt.  Luckily the eagles, whistling kites, pelicans, cormorants, ospreys, azure kingfishers, herons, ducks, swallows and cheeky fly catchers kept us amused whilst flogging the water to a foam during our fruitless fishing expeditions. Our red-claw efforts fared no better than our fishing – “you should have been here last month “was the frequent quote from the locals! Not sure why the fishing was so poor but perhaps the full moon and muddy water had something to do with it?

Our solar system neighbours -  Moon and Mars

Talking about moons – while we were camped here the longest total eclipse this century occurred. Apparently the next one is 105 years from now in the Northern hemisphere – did a bit a  mental math and came to the conclusion that I might miss that one - so set the alarm clock for 4:30 AM and donned my coat and beanie to photograph the red  moon.  Despite researching “how to photograph” the moon my resultant photos were a little disappointing with all the photos being a little blurry.  I did the calcs and realised that at my slow 10 second shutter speed the moon moved about 2.5 mins during the shot – enough to perhaps blur the shot (that’s my excuse!).  But was well worth getting out of bed - as the  night sky in the middle of the bush miles from any light pollution is a pretty special on any night and to watch the total eclipse red moon disappear into sunrise was better than listening to Molly (and Linda) snoring.

Packing up the tinny

Since we were here last time the local Banana Shire (good name for a Queensland town 😊😊)  has added a water filtration system for drinking water at the camp – so now a perfect (if the fish came back) bush camp site. Understandably very busy this time of year – but all grey nomads here - so friendly, happy campers.

If you’re thinking of coming this way - a week at Glebe Weir is a great way to spend some time – you might even catch one of those elusive fish 😊.

Made a short video link is HERE (watch out for the drone attacking Galahs).