We had been in Lincoln National Park for three night which
is a loooong time for us to be in the same place and I was ready to hit the
road. There had only been two other campers at the grounds, a couple of
backpackers in a van that read books and meditated for the whole time we were
there and an old couple who were a little of the strange side so we were hoping
there would be some other people to talk to in Coffin Bay and really hoped
there would be some kids around for the boys to interact with. After doing a
few jobs in Pt Lincoln we pointed the Izzygator towards Coffin Bay.
Coffin Bay is a cute little town with a mixture of seaside
shacks and some big mansion overlooking the bay that is dotted with oyster
leases. We headed out to the national park about 20 minutes out of town and as
we drove in the first van we saw belonged to Damo and Brendon, the boys mates
who we have meet a couple of times along the road, but hadn’t seen for a couple
of weeks. To say the least we were ecstatic to see them and the boys barrelled
out of the car before it had even stopped!
I love my kids and they are reasonably good at entertaining
themselves but on a trip like this it is great when they have other kids around
as they entertain each other and it gives them a break from just having each
other to play with. After lunch they decided to try and catch a goanna and
after doing some research on the internet they made a trap and put some food in
it for them. The only problem was that the food that they had captured was a
couple of lizards and....a scorpion! At least they had been smart enough to use
pliers to pick it up! The lizards seemed like fun so a while later they all had
a few pet ones crawling all over them!
 |
| Black thing under rock is a scorpion...I wasn't going to lift it up to get a pic! |
It wasn’t long before they came up with the idea of all of
them having a sleep ‘over’ in the tent tonight. When the parents agreed it felt
like Juan Antonio had just said Sideney again as there were man hugs and cheers
freely flowing! It wasn’t long after the tent was set up when we the dads and
boys headed off to do some beach fishing at Golden Beach.
We only have two beach rods so I rigged my Mum’s rod up with
a spinning reel for jack while Sam and I ‘shared’ my big rod with my Dad’s
massive old Alvey reel. We were chasing Australian Salmon with metal slugs or
lures and I wasn’t sure how Jacko would go casting such a big rod but after he
chose out his lure he seemed to be going OK and I left him to his own devices.
Sambo and I were taking it in turns but it was pretty hard for him and he and
Brendon eventually headed for the sand dunes to fight some invisible enemy
after about 30 minutes.
Jacko was still going strong and after about 45 minutes
he yelled at me that he thinks he has something. There was a lot of weed in the
water catching the lures so my initial thought was that but within about half a
second I saw the way the rod was bent over and bouncing and I made a mad dash
over to him while trying to wind my line in. The fish was putting up a bloody good
fight and managed to get airborne a couple of times and when I saw it I thought
we were in real trouble as I had only used 10lb leader. I let him pull it in
himself bar helping him hold the rod as his arms were about to fall off. It
took a couple of minutes to get it on the sand and Sam and Damo grabbed it and
held it aloft like they had just won the footy premiership. I thought they were
excited about sleeping in the tent but this had taken it to a new level! We all
fished for another 45 minutes but Jacko’s was the only one landed. As we got
back to the truck Damo and the boys gave three cheers for Jacko and I think he
was pretty chuffed!
After dinner the boys headed to the tent with some serious
warnings and Dave and Laurance, who are both French but have been living in
Australia for ages, joined us for a couple of drinks. It was pretty hard to
accept the offer from Dave who had bought over a bottle of Rare VSOP Cognac. It
tasted all the sweeter knowing we were going to have a night in the van alone tonight!
We eventually managed to quieten the boys down around 9:30
and headed inside for a blissful nights sleep! Until around 2:30am when the
boys both came back to sleep in the van! Damo had been cold so he left at 10:30
and while they had been asleep Brendon has woke up around midnight followed by
my two pork chops. Dave had heard Brendon and dragged him around 1:30 and my
boys ended up being terrified by the sounds of the kangaroos jumping around and
eventually gave up at 2:30. It wasn’t the whole night alone but anything is
better than nothing!!!
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