We had been having a few troubles with the draw clips on the
Gator and I had some up with a way of reinforcing them by bending a piece of
aluminium flat bar around them, so after breakfast the boys and I endeavoured
to make make one. Using a multitude of surfaces around the van we managed to
get it into the right shape but when I put it on the clip it was completely the
wrong size. Maybe I might get close working in my shed but not on the side of
the road. We racked our brains to find a solution and as I scoured the back of
the ute I picked up a piece of ratchet strap we ‘recovered’ from the Cape road.
Perfect. I heated up the end of a piece of metal and melted some holes and
presto we had a perfect fix! Happy Days!
With draws not mostly fixed we headed for the Fitzroy, the
local Barra hotspot. One of the things I have been really looking forward to
for this trip was being in the Kimberley’s as it is home to some awesome barra
fishing! The general consensus was that there was way too much bait in the
river at the moment so it was hardly worth the effort, but that wasn’t going to
discourage me!
We initially took the turn off into the camp but it was pad
locked and the road was looking pretty muddy due to the 100mm or so rain they
had recently had, so we retreated and headed to the roadhouse 25kms up the road
to find out more. Yep, that was the gate and “yep it is a lock, but it’s a
dummy”...great...i probably would have been slightly more cranky if we hadn’t
just run across Australia’s cheapest butcher shop. Lamb shanks @$7/kg...yes
please!
Finally back at the gate we opened it and slipped and slided
the next 10kms to the camping ‘area’. We checked a few of the turn offs and
found one that looked the driest, and headed down. There was a nice grassy area
just off the main track that I thought would reduce the amount of mud we would
have to live in so I headed for it...and almost made it....before I was stopped
by spinning wheels. Hmmmm..oh well lets have lunch and think about it after
that. A few minutes after lunch a Nissan Patrol rolls down the track to the
river to have a look and I wonder over to see if they would mind pulling us
out.
Within a second we recognise each other. As we were driving
out of Steep Point they were driving in and in passing we had a chat for a
couple of minutes about fishing etc and how I had caught a 9kg mack on a lure,
which had got him really excited! No problems, they were more than happy to
help so Logan and Larissa were all hands on deck and a few minutes later we
were safely parked up on a gravel area a bit up the hill!
Not long after lunch and we were all down at the river
casting our lures, which we continued to do for the remainder of the afternoon!
During the afternoon I got a call from Isuzu in Broome letting me know that the
part for my ABS and Traction Control had arrived and would we like to get it
done as they had deemed it to be a warranty job.....Yes Please, De is happy to
drive the 150kms back to get it done first thing in the morning!
A while later Logan and Larissa returned to join us for a
fish and we had a few bers and chatted as the sun set over a majestic river. It
was pretty cool as we could see the barra ‘boofing’ at the bait fish but they
weren’t interested in out hard bits of plastic with hooks attached. But what
was even cooler was seeing our first wild crocodile! Jacko was scared
somethingless even though we were on top of a 2m high bank and I was pretty
sure he was going to have nightmares!
As things go in this part of the world we ended up inviting them to stay and have dinner and after an inordinate number of beers and rums at around half past we pulled up stumps.
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