Day 182 – 14th July 2018 – Darwin, Gunn Point

Today we went to Gunn Point with Angry and Kat to do some fishing.  Gunn Point is about 70km from our Caravan Park.  Unfortunately I have to work on Sunday so we couldn’t camp with the rest of the group this time, but agreed just to go up for the day and try some fishing.

We met Kat and Angry at Maccas at 8.30am.  Unfortunately Kat was coming down with a sore throat and wasn’t feeling well, so she spent most of the day sleeping in the car.  We drove to Gunn Point but took some interesting turns off the main track and ended up in some tricky 4WD spots.  To the point where Col had to get out his chain saw and cut down trees so we could get through!  It was really interesting scenery and the drive was enjoyable although scary at times.  Col and Angry particularly loved it.  We arrived at where we thought we were meeting the rest of the crew later that day, but we were actually at Leaders Creek (we think) and not Gunn Point Beach, it might have been because we took the scenic off-road route there (or because Col was leading the way ).

We walked out across the mud flats and tried fishing with lures in a part of the creek that met the ocean, but didn’t have any luck.  I was fairly scared as I hate the idea of walking through a muddy swamp in a Croc infested area but Col assured me that I would survive and he was right.  It is also scary here the amount of tidal movement and the speed of it.  You can be standing somewhere safely one minute and not notice the water moving quickly and blocking off your exit.  This is especially concerning if there are Crocs around.  Anyway, I had the choice of going with Angry and Col and being brave or staying on my own and fishing in the creek where there are Crocs anyway. I kind of rely on Col’s knowledge of what fish we catch, if they are sizable or edible, if they have poisonous barbs or sharp bits to avoid.  I don’t quite feel ready to fish on my own with the Crocs, so brave I was and off I went.  We didn’t catch anything but we weren’t eaten by Crocs or stranded out there so that is a bonus.

In the afternoon we managed to get the others via the UHF radios and found out they were about 4km south of where we were.  So we drove down to the beach and met another group of great people.  There were 7 dogs of all different shapes and sizes too, two british bull dogs, an Irish Wolf Hound, two Kelpies, a Ridgeback and a Bitzer.  It was crazy.  We hung around there for a few hours and then headed home again.  We just don’t seem to have any luck with the land based lure fishing in Darwin so far.  We need to get the boat in the water I think!  It is well overdue.