So I can sense the anticipation for those who read last week’s blog in knowing how we got on with yet another fishing trip. Well, by way of a spoiler, we now know how Jesus fed the 5000 with just loaves and fish…. he had Cameron and his boat. We departed the dock at 07:30 to firstly catch the bait. This is a strange concept as we thought you just bought it and whilst it’s true you can get it from the tackle shops it’s apparently better to get it fresh. There were two types of bait, Potty mullet and Nippers (we just love Australian names), the first you get by filling a plastic tub with breadcrumbs and putting a hole in the top. It works a bit like a lobster pot and the small fish swim in but can’t escape. The second method is pure genius. You use a pump to draw up a column of sand and then expel it to reveal the “nippers”. Now we thought they were called nippers because they are small but in fact that they are saltwater crustaceans that live beneath the sand in the intertidal estuary.

They look like a cross between a crayfish and a prawn and as our fingers discovered (often), they really nip. With our bait secured we headed off up the estuary and to increase our chances we had 4 rods set, which we trailed behind us as we drifted with the tide. No sooner had we put the rods in the water than Stuart caught a flathead, it goes without saying that he now turned this into a competition, in which he was winning. He was over the moon therefore when 10 minutes later he caught a stingray. An unexpected catch and one which we had to put back but he still counted that as an unassailable 2-0 lead. From here on in the fish just kept coming, nothing of any great size but we kept those big enough to eat and obviously threw the rest back. We caught that many fish that even Stuart lost count. Of course it didn’t stop him declaring himself the winner and master fisherman….oh what a difference a week makes.  

Similar to last week we did a lot of walking of dogs this week, once more helping Lottie exercise her many canine friends. Walking the dogs means that you really get to see the surrounding area and the vast array of differing beaches becomes bewildering. We did wonder why it always seemed to be beaches where the dogs were walked as we were desperate to see more of the woodland areas. She explained that as the weather warms up the risk to the dogs becomes greater from the snakes. We accepted the reasoning and said we preferred beaches anyway J  

We couldn’t end the week without yet another trip to the One Tree Inn, our local pub and home to so many of the more interesting locals. This week there was a birthday party being held there which we had been invited to. There was going to be a mechanical rodeo bull, which fortunately didn’t turn up. The male stripper on the other hand did, much to Fran and Lottie’s delight. The pub here does something which they should do in the UK. At the end of the night they have a car that takes people home. It’s like a free taxi, you just tell them behind the bar you want to go and one of the bar staff drive you home. As once again the whole pub was descending into chaos we availed ourselves of the service leaving the youngsters to do whatever it is they do beyond midnight !!!!