Tequila, Bushwalking, SciFi, Mayhem

1997 : Lime Bay

This trip was a fairly simple overnighter, a nice easy camping trip, as you can park your car right next to the camping spot.

The only worry was the weather - the forecasts didn’t promise anything special, but as usual they underestimated… again…

Saturday dawned very wet and windy, and we didn’t hang around too long before heading off.

It rained the entire trip down, and didn’t really let up until after we’d picked out our camping area.

We managed to get up a nice big windbreak/shelter made out of blue tarpaulins, and we hid under that until the rain stopped.

The weather called for unusual construction…

We then quickly set up all the tents (except for me, as I decided sleeping the the car would be a good idea), and the seats etc. We then fired up all 4 gas stoves and sat the big hotplate on top and had ourselves a nice bbq, with steaks & snags - the usual Barbie fare… we also had an eski full of Corona, and (of course) we had our Lime Margerita mix!

BBQ! Tastrek Style!

After lunch the sun had come out, the wind had dropped, so it seemed like as good a time as any to go fishing!

We wandered down to the southern end of the beach, where the beach ended and the rocky outcrop started. Everyone went as far out on to the rocks as they could, and started fishing.

We had absolutely no luck at all! In fact with the area being so shallow and rocky, almost every cast snagged a rock or some kelp.

After much frustration, we decided to bugger off back to our camping spot, and try fishing just down on a little rocky knob about 20 meters from our tents.

Not a great deal of luck there either - I think everyone managed to hook a crab, but that was about it. That is until Mike hooked one of the most deadly fish in the world - A pufferfish (fugu). Now as none of us were qualified fugu chefs, we decided it was best to throw the little fella back.

Mike caught a puffer fish!

By this stage a nasty thunderstorm brought with it some rain, and wind, so we headed back to camp to start a fire, and have another bbq.

Well after much searching around we managed to find enough wood to get a decent fire going. But the wood was pretty wet, so there was more smoke than fire for a while.

A nice warm roaring fire!

But we did end up with a fairly hot flame going, and so we charred some more flesh, and ate a hearty meal.
It also should be mentioned that from the time we returned from the lunch fishing expedition, we were partaking from “The Doctor”, which happened to be 1 Gallon of Lime margarita! And it was strong too!

This was pretty much how the evening went - four guys, a fire, and alcohol!
Long into the evening the wild calls of “Wassaaaaaa” could be heard.

One gallon of Lime Margerita Mix!

Around 10pm or so, the rain, and wind had stopped, and in fact there was a dead calm, so we decided to hike down to the other end of the beach on try out luck there… pitch black, and with only torches and a lantern to guide us, it was an eerie trip.

And once again we had no luck.

So it was back to the camp, for some serious shut eye…

The next morning was quite nice, with the sun shining and everything… made a nice change.

Our campsite!

We had some brekkie, and decided that we’d have time to call in to Fortescue Bay to try some more fishing there…

We stopped at a little takeaway on the way for a lunchy snack, and then motored on down to Fortescue Bay.

Now here was some better fishing conditions!

We parked the cars and walked about half a kilometer up around the point to a nice wooden pier which jutted out about 20 meters in to the bay. The bay was quite deep too.

Everyone had a bit of a cast, and immediately started getting some strong nibbles & bites!

There were some smart little fishies down there as they were very good at getting the bait [Justin was using prawns as bait, I was using Squid] off the hooks.

But we did prevail, as Justin managed to land a small parrot fish, which we de-hooked, and threw back - and a few minutes later landed a slightly bigger one…

By this stage the sun had gone, being replaced by another nasty thunderstorm, with wind and rain.

We packed up went back to the cars, and headed home.

It pretty much rain most of the way home, but when we stopped in Dunalley for some seriously nice lunch/dinner, it absolutely bucketed down… we’re talking HUGE!!!

We waited inside for our lunch to cook, and the rain to stop, we then ate our lunch and drove home.

All in all a little disappointing, but still a good trek!

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