Day 156 - Friday 2 June - The elusive Barramundi

Day 156

Friday

2 June 2017

Cooinda – Yellow Water – Gunlom – Edith Falls Free camp

Ka-ka-du du du. I have this song on repeat in my head, though I am not pushing pineapples or shaking any trees!

5.30am bzz bzz bzz Seriously! It’s an early one. It was still dark outside not me looking at the inside of my eyelids.  We were up as we had the 6.45am fishing charter to make and the bus was collecting us at 6.25am.

I was in autopilot, glad that we had everything organised last night and I didn’t have to do any thinking. Once the breakfast kicked in, I was a bit more with it. We made good time, readying the van for our departure later and then walked over to the bus stop, where hordes of sightseers were milling about.  We were fortunate to be going with only one other couple, Wendy and Ross.

We were ushered onto a waiting bus and driven about 10min out to the Yellow Water where we boarded our fishing vessel and proceeded to wait for our guide. The sky was just starting to let go of its black velvet curtain, lighting up with purples, pinks and golds. It was certainly a magical time to be out.

Rob, our guide finally joined us and we began our cruised out into the billabong making our way to a spot that was home to a large 4m male croc, happily cruising along in the water.

I was far more interested in taking photos, but seeing I had paid $150 to fish, I was happy to give it a go. Rob could see I had absolutely no idea, so he spent a fair bit of time with me, teaching me the finer details before leaving me to it.

We all bobbed along in this spot, but nothing was biting. A sea eagle watched over proceedings, probably hoping to swoop in and help himself to anything small we caught, but he was out of luck.

We moved on to  another spot, where Rob pulled in a small Barra but again nothing was wanting to catch our lure no matter where we cast it. Our next spot was a little more successful. We backed into a tight area, disturbing a female croc who was swimming about in the weeds. She kept her distance and we tried not to cast near her. There were plenty of different birds here as well, so again I was out with the camera before taking the line again.

Wendy was the first to hook a 57cm Barra. Paul caught one next but it was just a small one and he had to throw it back. His first caught on a line barramundi. He did however catch a 58cm shortly after and it was a keeper YAY!

I had a few chasing my lure but nothing that I could catch on my hook, but it was fun to try. The female croc was getting a little agitated with our presence, obviously wanting to move to behind the boat, so we made our way to another spot.

I was still flicking the line back nothing was too interesting. Ross hooked a saratoga that was a good size, but it was released as they aren’t good eating. Paul then had another strike and wheeled in another Barra, but unfortunately it was 2cm short of the 55cm size limit and it had to go back. BUM. I had more sightings of fish near my lure but they just wouldn’t jump on so I came away empty handed, but I had still enjoyed my morning.

We were back at the dock by 9.45am and Rob drove us back to camp and kindly filleted and skinned our fish. I recon there will be at least 3 meals worth.  We then said our goodbyes, returned to the van and made our way out, stopping again at the fish station, as an eagle had come in to clean up the mess.

We were finally back on the Kakadu Highway for 10.15am and heading to Gunlom Waterfall about 90km down the road. The trip was uneventful. We watched the landscape float by and the birds sail around on the prevailing winds. Rock face escarpments dominated the horizon and savannah bushland peeled away from the road.

We passed the turn off to the waterfall, venturing on an extra 2km to the ranger station. Here we parked the van and unloaded the car, grabbed our things and then returned to the Gunlom turn off and made our way a further 35km on gravel to the falls car park. I am glad we left the van behind, as the road needed grading in many areas and it was a rough and bumpy journey. We passed a few hire vans going so slowly. I was surprised they were attempting it, as they are technically not allowed to travel on more than 10km of dirt.

Once at the car park, we grabbed our lunch bag and found a table to enjoy it at. We then changed into our bathers, read the info about the 2km, steep, rocky walk to the top rock pools and began our climb. It was certainly an effort. The path was a glorified goat track of rock that my little legs had trouble navigating at parts.

We reached the first lookout, admired the view and pressed on. If you looked up you were bamboozled by the sheerness. There were times I had to stop, examine the landscape and then work out where the path was. The second lookout however exposed what it was we had made the trek for, not only a great view back over the car park and beyond, but behind us, three beautiful clear plunge pools.

I hurried my way down the rocks, descending to the edges of the pool. Paul was in quick but I took some photos first before joining him. We made our way to the waterfall shooting over the edge. The water from it was warmer than the pool we were in that was a little bracing when I first slid in. We perched on a rock before making our way back to the edge and into the next pool. This one was not very deep and had a white sandy bottom to walk on. Little fish darted around us as we made our way to the next plunge pool. This was the best spot, a natural infinity pool, where you could sit on the edge of the rock and admire the view. A very kind man offered to take some photos of us sitting on the edge, which was lovely.  

We took in the majesty of the view, marveling at the spectacular landscape and commenting would you want to be anywhere else right now.

After getting out, we clambered over the rocks where we could see the large plunge pool at the bottom as the waterfall cascaded away. It truly was worth the effort to get up to this spot and we made sure we told everyone as we passed them on our way down, looking hot and frazzled, that it was so worth it.

Once back at the bottom, we walked around to the large pool at the bottom of the waterfall to check the view from there. We could see people walking along the top rim, but they ducked away before I took the photo.

After taking in the view, we were back in the car and on the dirt road heading back to our parked van. Once there, the car went back on and we made our way south, heading in the direction of Edith Falls, a place we visited on the 18 May.

The road was somewhat more twisty and dropped away in stages. A group of Water Buffalo were grazing by the side of the road, their massive horns a striking feature. We slowed down to take photos before they got nervous and took off for the bush.

I continued to write the blog as we travelled along, watching the km’s tick away and by 4pm we turned into the Edith Falls Road. We didn’t get far as a flashing sign told us the caravan park was full. Fortunately we were next to a clearing that was being used by a couple of other campers and we pulled in there instead. 

We set up for the night, then sat back and relaxed. I went through all the photos taken today while Paul cooked up the first bag of the barra caught today. We ate dinner at 5.30pm, early by our recent standards, but considering we were up early dinner was not early at all.

After finishing dinner, I took photos of the sunset leaving streaks of colour across the sky and then we kicked back reading and listening to the Ipod before we retreated to bed. Hopefully we won’t be up as early tomorrow.