Mitchell River 27 Aug

Arrived at the Mitchell River at 1am. How did I know? The anchor went down right in my left ear hole, that's how! Up early yet again – those who know me well will not believe this ongoing trend – to be force fed breakfast and then set off to Surveyor’s Pool.

We take the tinnys along the Mitchell River and disembark for another rocky climb and walk (Trippy says 2 kms, yeah, right!!). More aboriginal rock art along the way and a great view back along the river to the tinnys. You might get an idea now from these photos of the walks we took everyday .

We continue on past little shrubs with flowers, kapok trees and more spinafex and rock. It is hard to believe you can find these little flowers in such a harsh environment. I should also say how careful you have to be on the rocks. With the tides rising and falling so dramatically, when the tide is low the rocks are often covered with black mud which makes them very dangerous and slippery.

We eventually arrive at Surveyor’s Pool, a very beautiful and quite large waterhole. Each day is probably 30 – 33 degrees so you can imagine how welcoming the water is when we finally get to it. A lot of work was done on the synchronized swimming routine here, big arm actions and team diving. At one stage I became very aware of why those girls wear those stupid nose pegs when my sinuses got a very good cleaning out. Laurence and Lord Snowden (Stephen) spent quite a bit of time climbing the rocks around the pool for that great photo. We aren’t quite sure what the hand holding had to do with it though. Hmmm!

On the way back to the GE we went for a flick along the river. My very first cast I hooked the elusive barra. Tip up, wind on the way down, tip up, wind on the way down, tip up, wind on the way down. My gawd these things are heavy! Flip, flop, flip – it’s gone. Bugger. Stephen caught a couple of fingermark bream but I’m afraid I only caught my usual cod after that – I know Tim, we don’t have those in this boat!!

As the Mitchell River is the place to catch barra, we go out again after lunch. They were definitely biting but just not hooking on. We did have a little friend who decided to tag along to see what he could snatch though. Boy was he creepy, there one minute, gone the next – but where?

Dusk was beginning to settle and then, bang, Adrian hooks a barra – a big barra. The fight is on and he wins the fight. We return to the boat very excited only to discover that in total we had 6 barra and a bucket load of Spanish Flag and Mangrove Jacks. Ali, Dave, Adrian, Warren and Jennifer are very happy. The only one looking grim was Nathan who had let slip several barra.

Tut, tut Nathan.

Dinner was spent telling fishy tales while those in the galley were taking the mickey out of Nathan – he’s the one with the sad box face.

We head towards the Hunter River.