The Fishing Lesson

I don't like to brag but I am a real fisherman, not a bait soaker. I use lures, or occasionally live bait, but mainly lures. Prawns, squid and the other frozen muck you get from the local store are for novices and wannabes. Sure you'll catch fish, but they will mainly be undersized bream and other little nuisances. If you want to catch good fish without the bother of countless pickers you need to learn the art of fishing with lures.

Don't get me wrong, bait has its place. Its great for kids who are too impatient for lure fishing. Teach your kids to thread a prawn onto a hook, and shake off the little pickers they will inevitably catch, and they will stay happily occupied while you wander off with your lures in search of real fish.

And that was how it almost happened when we chanced upon the delightful little dot on the map south of Broome called Port Smith. All the way north from Port Headland the landscape was unrelentingly dull. Out here, every small rise in the land is called Mt Something. Broad, scrubby plains stretch to the horizon on three sides and to broad mangrove swamps on the other. The land doesn't so much meet the sea as merge uncertainly into it.  And the big tides run fast, sometimes faster than you can walk, gobbling up the land and stranding unsuspecting anglers.

Port Smith contrasts delightfully with this dullness. It boasts a beautiful big lagoon fringed by beach, mangroves and rocks, and promises bags of fish. It is also blessed by a lovely little caravan park where the campsites are spacious, shady and cheap, the service is friendly, and the toilets are clean. All in all, a nice place to spend a few days chillaxing on your way around the country.

Spacious and shady

There is no port here. Just a property that used to be owned by pearlers. Now there is just a caravan park and a homestead.

So after a leisurely brekkie, we headed down to the lagoon armed with prawns for the kids and Nic, and a small selection of lures for me. I set the girls up on the beach, then left them to the pickers while I headed for the rocks and mangroves in search of mangrove jack.

Scores of well placed casts into nooks and snags with surefire lures for no result made me start to think that maybe this wasn't a fishermen's paradise after all. Except that when I looked over at Mallee, her rod was bent right over as she struggled with a large, feisty golden trevally that was striping line from her reel. Some times even bait soakers get lucky.  In fishing, fortune favours the brave and persistent, so I continued casting my lure closer into the rocks and trees, only to see Jarrah's rod bend under the weight of an even bigger GT minutes later. Undeterred, I pursued my craft without even a single strike as my reward, while Mallee caught another good sized GT.

Mallee's first GT

Jarrah, not so keen once the fish is landed

Dogged persistence while the victor frolics

It is always a proud pleasure to watch your kids succeed at something you have taught them, but I am sure there is another valuable lesson in this story, if only I could find it. In the meantime, if you are heading this way be sure to check out Port Smith.

One last cast

Looking back on a great day

We'll see you when dust settles.

Travellers' tips

Five things to avoid when travelling around Australia.
5. Box jelly fish
4. Emus on the Nullabor
3. Talk back radio
2. Death adders
1. Port Headland

Blown away

Close your eyes and relax. Now imagine yourself in a World Heritage Area. On the coast. In the tropics. Fringed by one of the world's largest coral reefs. Ningaloo is exactly what you didn't imagine. No rainforests, no crystal streams, and the only palm trees are the ones that form an incongruous facade along the nearby Lighthouse Caravan Park. This is flat, semi-arid scrubland bounded to the east by a low, rocky limestone ridge. No wonder the Dutch didn't want it.

It rarely rains here, but when it does, it pours, as it did on the day of our arrival. We hit the storm half way along our journey from Tom Price and within minutes the shallow floodways were filling with water, giving Nic a cheek clenching driving experience. Fortunately by the time we arrived at Ningaloo the rain had finished, but the runoff had made the water very murky.

Undeterred by the wind and murky water, I took the girls fishing but in these conditions it didn't take long for them to lose interest. Which is how I came to be holding Jarrah's pink rod with a small pink lure as 3 big fish cruised past. In these conditions with such a light lure it was going to take a huge cast to land the lure in front of them. A big back swing. The two piece rod comes apart. The tip falls off. The line wraps around my leg. A big follow through and now I have a pink lure deeply embedded just below my knee. On the bright side, the trip into Exmouth Hospital allowed Nic to book a Whale Shark and Snorkeling trip the next day.

The wind had thankfully eased up for the day and we set off first for some snorkeling on the reef. Visibility was still a bit poor for from the storm, but the reef fish were beautiful. All sorts of colours, from vibrant blues and yellows, to browns and greens that gave perfect camouflage against the reef. Then it was time to head outside in search of whale sharks. Over the course of a couple of hours, we found four, including one 9 metres long.

Now the regulations say that people are not allowed to go within 4 metres of the sharks, but clearly some of the sharks don't read the regulations. I was towing Jaz on a noodle when the shark turned towards us, and despite my best efforts Jaz almost disappeared down its 1 metre wide cavernous gob. Nic's heart stopped beating but Jaz and I were treated to a close up view of the biggest shark of the day.

I feared that after the breathtaking beauty of Karijini, the rest of the trip would seem pedestrian. Swimming with the whale sharks was a completely different experience, but every bit as breathtaking, or in Nic's case, heart-stopping. A day we won't forget.

That evening, the wind returned with renewed strength. Strong enough to blow a dog off a chain, or more relevantly, fold our 100 km/h rated tent in half. We decided that whatever else Ningaloo had to offer would have to wait till next life. We packed up camp and headed for the relative shelter of Exmouth where we forsook our tent and stayed in a 'chalet' (though I was very disappointed by the lack of gluhwein or raunchy apres ski activities).

We'll see you when the dust settles.

Jaz and Geoff taking evasive action

The skipper

As long as a bus

Family photo

Mallee swimming bravely away

Marine girl

Welcome relief

After two weeks of driving across broad, flat plains on long, straight roads, the relief of the Pilbara was very welcome. The landscape here is starkly beautiful. By day, the sparsely vegetated, blood red hills rise in stunning contrast to the deep blue sky. By night, the stars 'fairly blaze'. And in between we are treated to majestic sunrises and sunsets.

It was also a big relief to stop moving. Six days in one spot is a luxury, especially when there are no mossies and hardly any flies.

The greatest relief lay in the stunningly beautiful gorges of Karijini National Park. If we tried to describe these, we  would quickly run out of superlatives, so we'll let the photos tell the story.

We'll see you when the dust settles - if we ever ring our way out of these gorges.