shiz gettin real

 fishing, foodie stuff, gap year, us  3 Responses »
Nov 132014
 

nov 19

so d-day approaches apace, 4 days and we are off on our gap year. we are slowly working thru the to-do list prior to departure, the fact that we are coming back makes it a series of tasks without pressure, what we dont get done, we dont get done!

the fact that we are effectively spending the first month doing a rellie-run lessens the anticipation, excitement and nervousness, I think if we were taking off straight to a new country it would be both more exciting and intimidating.

the photo above for me portrays what I know we will miss, sitting out on our back verandah, with my dear wife, shirtless (me, not her), sipping a cheeky sauv blanc and demolishing a whole crispy skin golden snapper, with Thai tamarind and chilli sauce on rice. we caught the fish on our boat, its a sweaty build up night with the dark, dusk sky filled with grey, stormy clouds. this is our life – and i know i shall miss it.

its been a pretty foody november, got off to a rollicking start when i was going thru one of the freezers and found a lovely pork belly, i marinated it in a bourbon marinade and then dry rubbed it with 17 secret spices and herbs. it was onto the weber smokey mountain cooker then for a few hours slow roasting. i had a tray of spuds in the lower rack and they gently roasted in the drizzle of piggy fat, i dont know that it would have got the tick from the heart foundation, but hey its ok occasionally isnt it?!

melbourne cup was next cab off the rank, the gurls were off for a big knees up at the walkabout, but i took the opportunity to do a warm smoked chicken salad with poached eggs and hollandaise sauce for brunch, you cant really go wrong with anything that involves a properly made hollandaise!

sal had a poor day at the races, she spends days before the big race studing form guides, tea leaves and tarot cards and nearly always comes home drunk and cashed up. at least she still came home drunk!

i sort of get the feeling i should have split this post in 2! anyway, we are on the home straight now! we managed to get a day in fishing with dave, in between preparations at home, we went out on dave’s boat and while it was less than perfect conditions, we had a great day, caught a couple of little mackies, a huge queenfish and a big barracouta. we had lunch at SE Bremmer island and enjoyed a swim in the balmy build up waters! the mackeral got thrown on the char grill with lashings of olive oil and salt with grilled limes.

kade had his birthday last saturday and spent the day cooking a piggy on a spit, its a bloody big job, especially with a hand cranked spit, and sitting around a fire pit in the build up is a bit like cooking in a sauna, but the end result was magnificent and we all had a rollicking good time.

somewhere in there we had a few spots of rain one afternoon, kai stood out the back shivering and if you look closely you can see the rain drops on the concrete, it was the first hint of the wet, with no rain since july.

kai also won a principal’s award for  being a “thoughtful, friendly and helpful student, best wishes on your world wide adventure”

earlier this week i found a big eye fillet in the freezer so i whacked it into slabs and chucked it on the char grill, dead animal singed on coal cant be beaten, it is the best argument against vegetarians and other food deviants.

that should round out the pics and the last update before we depart on monday, irregular updates will cover our meandering around the globe so stay tuned – please subscribe at the top of the right hand frame, that way you will get an email everytime i post an update!

 

 

fillum

 fishing, us  1 Response »
Oct 182014
 

film 6Last weekend sal had to pop over to darwin for an MRI, it was just routine and a confirmation that all is well before we head off on our gap year, but it meant that kai had to come to work with me – because we had a group travelling to bawaka to shoot a fillum!

tourism australia are making a new international advertisment promoting indigenous cultural tourism and had commissioned warwick thornton of sampson and delilah fame to make it, they had done a reccy previously, visiting us as part of a month of travelling australia and visiting suitable locations. now they were back to actually shoot the final footage.

they brought ‘talent’ with them, a woman and a man who are portrayed visiting the various parts of australia featured in the ad, ayers rock, mossman gorge, cape leveque, mount borradaile and here, the talent are shown having a grand old time with the locals and hopefully more cashed up international visitors will be inspired to come and visit!

kai was included in some of the scenes so he may or may not make it past the cutting room floor!

the highlight of the whole experience was probably warwick catching a very decent barra off the rocks at the front of bawaka, the leader broke just as he got it to shore and his son, dylan dived in and grabbed the slightly disorientated and very unlucky barra before it could make its escape!

this event would be challenged for highlight status by the sight of my flesh and blood dressed in a summery skirt and sleeveless blouse, hamming it up with the girls!

i shot a little bit of video of the performance of ‘djapana’ the song and dance about the sunset, specifically the sunset viewed from bawaka, this is the inspiration for the song of the same name by yothu yindi which was one of their best known songs.

 

 Posted by at 7:50 am  Tagged with: ,



friends and fun

 fishing, us  2 Responses »
Oct 042014
 

oct 5

ancient cycads scattered amongst ancient rocks, after the fires. classic end of the dry season scene in arnhem land, i just love the contrast of the charcoal black with the luminescent green new growth. the cycads date from the jurassic era – about 200m years ago, the rocks are some of the oldest in the world – formed in the precambrian era over 400 million years ago!

i have been busy out and about again, with trips to bawaka, bukudal and gan gan in the last couple of weeks, i had a great time at gan gan chatting to the old man, Dr Garrawin Gumuna, he is the only surviving Yirrkala Church Panel artist and despite his age his mind is as sharp as a knife and the wit is nicely honed too!

we have had our old mate phil obrien staying again while he helps out with a few tours, always a pleasure to have around and one of the last real gentlemen larrikins, they broke the mould with phil!

sal has also had a friend from sydney, helen, stay for a week or so, they hadnt seen each other since sal and i met so it was lovely for sal to catch up and spend time with her.

vic has also been hanging around for a few weeks, vic bought my old boat and used to be a teacher at yirrkala, he had an epiphany and he and his family left so he could do medicine and after 3 years he has come back to do a 6 week placement, melissa and the kids also came up for about a week so it was fantastic to catch up for both families.

we also met peter and alissa who are friends of our friends steve & bridget, peter & alissa are living in new york where steve and bridget are currently based and had popped back to australia to watch the bunnies in their first grand final in 42 years, they decided on a whirlwind tour of arnhem land this week.

i only have a couple more weeks work and sal finishes up at the end of the month and then our gap year starts on november the 17th when we head to tassie, so its really getting a tangible reality now!

so here are a few photos of the last few weeks,

sal, helen, kai and i spent 3 days earlier this week camping at bawaka, here are a few images,

finally a gallery of the visitors!

 

early build up?

 fishing, us  No Responses »
Sep 112014
 

sept 4this week we have had a definite change in the weather, winds have been very light and actually swung round to the NW a couple of times – which suggests an early build up to me!

tuesday sal & i spent the afternoon out on the boat in glass off conditions, i had also done a dawn run with vic in the morning, fishing was crap due to the full moon but conditions were magnificent,

the last 2 days I have been down at bawaka cooking for a tour of rio management, beautiful foggy mornings and sunny, still days – the nights were much warmer than a week ago when i was last out camping. the photo above is the sunset last night.

this is sunrise on tuesday,

sept 1and later in the day heading towards arnhem shoals with sal,

sept 2

another sunset from bawaka to finish off,

sept 3

hopefully the fishing will pick up!

 

 

 Posted by at 7:54 pm  Tagged with:



dad’s day

 fishing, us  1 Response »
Sep 072014
 

dads day 008

starting at the end, my mate, vic, who is back for 6 weeks doing a placement with various health providers, went spearfishing yesterday and came back with 4 lovely crays, a big reef mangrove jack and a blue bone. we cooked up the crays in a coconut cream curry sauce tonite and set a little aside for sashimi.

one of the crays was full of bright red roe, so i made a roe mayonnaise to have with the sashimi. we woofed the cray curry down and saved the fish for tomorrow night!

earlier in the day vic had come around for a coffee, and due to the rest of my family still being in bed after a big night last night, vic and I drove out and hooked up with a mutual friend who took us to a beautiful and secret, fresh water spot. we tried flicking some plastics for a saratoga or barra, without any success. still it was a lovely way to spend dad’s day – with a couple of other dads and out in the bush!

 Posted by at 8:07 pm  Tagged with:



gary and tims adventure

 fishing, foodie stuff, us  1 Response »
Jun 012014
 

gary 008

the last couple of weeks we have had gary and his son tim, staying with us. gary is an old mate of my brother, simon’s and they have been threatening to come for a fishing trip for about 10 years, simon is always too busy and finally gary got sick of waiting and rang me and told me he was coming and as simon was once again unavailable he decieded to bring his son tim.

i guess simon does have the excuse this year that he and his family are just about to head off to canada for a month, but he missed out on a pretty damn fine adventure!

we have struggled with the weather a bit, its been very windy for virtually their whole visit, with typical dry season south easterlies of  15-20kts every day, but we have made the most of it. their first day here i took them to my seekrit spot to try for some land based barra and we got a few nice fish, the photo above is tim’s first barra so that got things off to a good start.

gary 009

the next couple of days we worked hard for little reward, bashing across the bay so we could fish the creeks, we got a couple of fish and a feed of mudcrab, so it wasnt a total loss. the little croc having a snooze on the sandback was about 20m from where i jumped out of the boat to push us across a shallow spot trying to get into the giddys river at low tide. i had a good look in the water before jumping in, but forgot to look on the bank! luckily he was having a nanna nap in the cool conditions!

the second week we headed out on the hama pearl ii for a 3 day charter in buckingham bay, the plan was to target barra, but we had left our run a bit late in the year, the cool water and lack of run off meant there were not many barra around and the ones that we caught were mainly rats. the trip was saved by a couple of days of fishing the reefs off the front of kurella creek where we were anchored. we caught a heap of goldies and quite a few big jewfish.

on the last day kai and i climbed to the top of the hill on the bank of the kurella river and took some pics of the hama pearl anchored in the river, finally thanks to brad and kim for an amazing charter, we had our stomachs stretched with a constant stream of fantastic food, from full cooked breakfasts everyday, yummy cakes and biscuits, filling lunches, plates of nibblies to have with cold beers at the end of a long days fishing, magnificent dinners and filling desserts! the boat was always spotlessly clean, nothing too much trouble for our hosts, cool beds in the air con cabin and hot showers!

if anyone is considering a charter in arnhem land you cant go past ss charters, http://www.sscharters.com.au

all in all its been a great couple of weeks, many fine memories for all involved and we are already making plans for another trip when the weather is more conducive to bagging the elusive barra!

nyinyikay

 fishing, us  3 Responses »
Apr 202014
 

nyinyikay 010

friday saw me headed off to nyinyikay, a small homeland on the tip of arnhem bay, i was joining lirrwi tourism in supporting a film crew shooting some reality TV rubbish involving 6 young city things being taken out of the surburban comfort zone and being confronted with challenges to their personal stereotypes. its all pretty voyeuristic and exploitive, but they wanted to shoot an episode in arnhem land, hence we were driving 5 vehicles, 2 towing trailers, in torrential, tropical rain, 4 hours from nhulun to nyinyikay.

we had to cater for 15 crew as well as the cast of 6, so its a lot of resources, tents, stretcher beds, bedding, food and drinks for 21 people for 4 days over easter. given that it had been raining for the last 3 days solid, we were not sure whether we would even be able to get out to nyinyikay , nor whether the cast & crew would be able to fly in on saturday morning.

as it turned out the rain did stop on saturday so we were able to get all the tents set up in time and we had the catering set up on the verandah of the house we were staying in so we had shelter if it rained again. the whole entourage, with thousands of kilos of camera and sound gear, flew in on about 5 seperate small charter flights from gove airport.

between looking after the clients, we were able to get some good fishing in, i think we ended up with about 5 barra that were keepers, half a dozen each of blue salmon, mangrove jack and golden snapper.

all of the families of the nyinyikay community were fantastic with sharing their culture and land with the visiting mob, and its certainly a good example of the potential for cultural tourism in the region and the benefits it can bring to small communities seeking sustainable economic models.

i dont know what the TV show is called even, so i cant tell you to watch out for it anyway, which is just as well because i think the cringe factor will be high.

 

macgyvered

 fishing, foodie stuff, us  1 Response »
Apr 112014
 

april 002so today was a perfect, windless, wet season day, so we loaded the tinny up and headed out for a fish, the plan was to head up to last chance shoal to troll for a few macks and then on to cape wilberforce for some bottom bouncing on some bommies up there, finishing up with lunch on the beach at elizabeth bay.

the best laid plans of mice & men etc…..we got up to last chance shoal and almost straight away hooked up a fish, i told kai to pull it in and so he started pulling the trolling line in, it came really easy as if it were a very small fish, but when it got to the boat I realised it was a big mack and it was very green – it saw the boat and me swing down to gaff it and it went mental, as it took off vertically out of the water at the back of the boat it tore the hydraulic line out of the ram for the steering on the motor!

i spent the best part of an hour trying to repair it, but had no luck so I had to macgyver a hand steering setup with the gaff, an old boat hook, a roll of duct tape and some cord line! anyway it got us home so alls well that ends well!

dinner was kai’s mackerel turned into thai fish cakes, mango salsa and mountain rice.

 

paradise

 fishing, us  3 Responses »
Apr 022014
 

april 016this morning i was reminded of why this is such a special place and how much i love my life here! i decided to go for a fish today and on checking the tides saw it was high tide at about 10:30, i wanted to fish the turn and fall of the tide chasing some barra in the bay, so I chucked a couple of rods in the boat and about mid morning headed out to catalinas to launch. 5 minutes later I was over in the mangroves on the other side of the bay  –   the only boat on the water, a light breeze and sun shining!

I spent a couple of hours working the rocky outcrops and mangroves as the tide started to fall and pull the bait out of their cover, using the electric Minn Kota means its stealth mode and you get to see everything going on in the water, i saw schools of beautiful diamond rays, black backs speckled with white spots, i saw little reef sharks cruising the shallows, schools of mullet and gars, sea eagles waiting for lunch and jabiru storks flying past.

The barra were proving hard to raise, but a beautiful big squid, sparkling iridescent colours, showed more than a passing interest in my soft plastic prawn, but he was too slow and a golden snapper stormed out from a rock and snatched the prawn from in front of the squid, it wasnt long before a mangrove jack was added to the esky and then I had a good battle on light gear with a decent tarpon. in between i caught a few small trevally and a fat old black bream.

I was back at the boat ramp by 1:30 so a quick 3 hours on the water, a wealth of wildlife observed, a couple of nice keepers in the esky, some fish for family on the way home and life is good!

 

 

 Posted by at 4:31 pm



friends

 coffee, fishing, foodie stuff, us  4 Responses »
Mar 172014
 

brian 015friends are special, its a self evident truth, but we were reminded of it this week past when old friends Brian & Penny visited nhulunbuy. they left about quite a few years ago, but we have remained in touch over the years and caught up a couple of times.

brian & penny stayed with our mutual friend dave, but the days started at rick’s bar and grill for coffee and ended here for dinner and copious amounts of alcohol! we once again enjoyed sharing our table with others with a fine appreciation for food, meals included char grilled steak with grilled vegetables and french fries, freshly caught fish in panko breadcumbs, thai fish cakes, mango salsa and wild mountain rice, fish amok (cambodian curry), and potato and mackerel bake.

brian, dave and i worked on several EBAs together and i grew to admire his intellect, humour and humanity – and a week of fishing, drinking, eating and talking crap only confirmed what a great mate he is. it was also good to spend more time than we usually find for each other, with dave – we live 100m from each other and dont spend as much time as we should hanging out.

its so important to maintain relationships across time and space, beyond family its all we have and one of the main things that defines us.

as with all really good friends, we may not stay in contact, or even catch up all that often these days, but when we do it just picks up from where we left off.

we got plenty of fishing in too, brian got some nice barra out of the bay  and we had a great days mackeral fishing out on dave’s boat.

anyway, time to let the images do the talking!

 

 Posted by at 6:08 pm



fishin’

 fishing, us  No Responses »
Dec 292013
 

bawaka (3)

 

today was one of those superb wet season days, no rain, light breeze, flat water and hot! so we loaded up the tinny and headed off for a run down to bawaka, we caught a nice mix of fish on the way down and had planned to drop most of the catch off to the community when we got there. everyone must have been off hunting as there was no one there so we took the fish home and dropped it off to family in Yirrkala.

(click on the “i ” in the top left corner for photo caption)

tonites dinner is barramundi cod, not a fish i normally keep as they mate for life, but I caught about 5 in a row and got sick of throwing them back! for some reason i didnt take any pics of the fish!

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