WEEK 5 OR 6?


Starting to loose track of time now……We have been based at Koolpinyah Station near Howard Springs staying with John and Kristy Geddes overlooking a magnificent lilly padded lake the bird life of which is any twitchers envy!  I have yet to glass it all but if the many Jacana's are any indication I'd hope to see some new ones I can mark off in my book endemic to the NT?

The girls left for Bali on…….Saturday? and today it's……Monday? and life is starting to slow down and a holiday relaxing sense finally realising!  A willy willy has just come through the camp and a woolworths bag is at 200 feet and my tinny just got rolled on it's side!  Cool!  The green woolies bag is still floating like the feather in forrest gump……!  Touch down right about where it looks like John and Kristy's new puppy Axel got taken by a croc a few days ago. Jay their youngest tracked him to the lake and found his paw prints into a section of the dam where there is an obvious sign of a large disturbance in the weed and water and the hundreds of crocodiles in the lake leave no guesses as to Axel's whereabouts!  John's comment shortly after was "it's not really a place you can have pet dogs" as they also lost their faithful dog Daisy of about 11 years and posted a $10K reward for it's return only two months ago and it is suspected that the croc's may have a hand in this also?  Very sad indeed for the family.

                 Vale 'Axel'  Poor little bugger........very sad for the Gedde's with the blasted croc's!

First day we arrived young Jay went pig shooting  around 2pm and at 7pm we had the search party all on quads about to go find him and Todd ran down and fence line he thought might be right and found Jay who was naked except for pants and covered from head to foot in mud to stop the mozzies after he got bogged on the yellow quad in this shot.  John and I went the next day and pulled it out.  Funny days!

                                            Little croc fishing in the Adelaide River

        My first Jewel on lure! Fight better than a barra and nice to eat for dinner that night!

                                 John saved the day with a nice King....very hard fishing today!

A swamp hollow we visited and the dark marks are from the buffalo scrathing, I just wonder what they did when found out about the big paper wasp nest nest to it in shot!

Koolpinyah Plains, straight out of Tom Coles 'Hell West and Crooked' except we're on quads

John's favourite Jewie bait....Tarpon were in the millions in the little dam behind me....hook ups were hard but we didn't care, good fun but very scary/eerie water hole and did not like standing close to water at any time.

But…where there's crocs there's barra and there is no shortage of them here!  We are setting a croc trap today at one of the crossings near the Koolpinyah Flood plains where one of the station hands was rushed by a 14 foot crocodile while fishing a drain a couple of weeks ago.  He was lucky that he saw the croc laying in wait before he walked to cross a tiny causeway amongst the lilly pads and weeds and said that when he saw it and back away slowly, the croc also back into deeper water.  He didn't know what to do as he had to cross this causeway to get home.  He fished the other side for a while hoping the croc would move around to him and then ran full speed across the causeway and thrust his rod tip into the water where he saw the croc before.  At this time the croc rushed from the water and fortunate for him, it's mouth caught on the bottom wire of the fence and didn't get his meal this day.  So it's down to the crossing shortly with a croc trap and a feral pig for bait.  

Have been fishing with John and Greg in the Adelaide River the past week with a day on day off sort of regime.  Caught some nice silver / salty barra's and yesterday got 6 of the biggest bucks in the crab pots which was a great surprise and feast last night.  Being just the boys (John, Greg, Todd, Jay and myself) it was mudcrab and floured King Salmon and Jewel for tea.  Early to bed and today spent tidying up between Buffalo shoot and croc trapping.

An email from the girls states they arrived safe and well and enjoying massages a plenty.  I'm very envious…..I paid $25 for a neck and shoulders massage at  the Mindil Beach Markets last Friday evening and kept telling the bloke to go harder….we ended breaking his chair as he was leaning fully on my shoulders with all his weight and the plastic deck chair finally gave up the ghost and the masseur shaking his head! HA...

The motor bikes have just started so I will hold for now and report later!  We are also required to get a buffalo for the owner today so I have been given the honour of the hunt!  Although I lost my blood lust years ago I hope to be able to drop whatever unfortunate beast we find with one shot and perhaps a photo of my first ever Buffalo!   Time will tell!

Well it's 11.30pm and a bottle of home brew rum with John after the dozen pre-emptive beers earlier and lights out!   

The croc trap has been re-set and we are all buzzing about tomorrow as the barramundi at the causeway (croc trap) were completely insane!  Boofing everywhere and with John's sunglasses we could see about 8 or 10 - 70+ cm barra's laying in a drain lane under our feet and the noise of boofing barra surrounding us was insane!…. John reported before we left as he stood gazing at the drain with his polarised sunnies that a metre long barra had just swum into the throng….!   I walked out onto a section where as we arrived a small 6 foot croc disappeared and as I walked I saw a large school of mullet swim away from me toward the lagoon.  I then video'd the result…..the barra obviously cottoned on and the water was thrashed to foam like a tuna school as the barra devoured the fleeting mullet!  You could actually see the barra leaping out of the water like tuna attacking the fish they were that full on!   So……we must check the croc trap in the morning….while also taking a reef pick to remove some of the lilly pads and weed to clear a decent fishing lane which will 100% go off!!!!!

The croc trap set where the 14 footer had a go at one of the ringers.  The running water right of shot is where it charged from and caught on the bottom wire of the fence.  That is the causeway he had to sprint across towards the vehicle.

Back to the buff hunt…..We finally found a young Micky Bull on the verge of the flood plain at about 4pm after searching, getting bogged and high and low loosing faith until finally a lone Micky was found.   Ironically while driving around the last week we have seen buffalo every single day driving past them and swerving to miss them but when the call came that one was to be taken we could not find one no matter where we drove and how hard we searched!   Long story cut short, today was D-Day and James an old hand of Koolpinyah (27yrs of age) who has spent about 8 years on and about the station croc catching for the local farms and 'ringing' let me use his .308.  Our last effort after going back to the station and washing down from all the mud after being bogged and recovering several times searching, we went to a spot we saw a heard of Buffs days earlier….needless to say we finally found one!  I jumped out of the ute and used a tree branch for support as having never fired the rifle before its very un-nerving to not know a gun.  Having gone over in my head how I would take the shot, stressing about stuffing up and missing and listening to young Jay explain how different to scrub bulls you must drop your shot and aim between the eyes I was lining up and James on my shoulder whispered…."go for the neck front on mate" as the young bull was looking straight at me.  What I didn't know was that John driving the ute was getting out of the car and preparing to shoot after my possible stuff up with his .243 but as James suggested I took the shot and the bull dropped instantly dead.  I apologise to those that find this gruesome or offensive but John and James boned out the carcass to offal and I can't wait to cook our first round of Buffalo burgers in a week or so!  I was relieved that the buff was instantly killed and presently there is a cold room full of beef hanging 3 metres from my bed.

While searching for a buff James and I got bogged a couple times because of the trailer so it was get in and get dirty a few times.  John heard us bogged and having to unhitch the trailer etc.. and started to walk to us to help but we got out.  Greg has taken this shot and they way you can tell is there's a rifle in shot.  Our guardian angel was our Greg!

Young bull buff instant kill and bled out immediately by James who sprinted in after the shot.

The boys get to work!  Took both John and James about 30 minutes and all that was left was head, offal and a two hocks!

                                       Ready for hanging in the cold room.

Tomorrow we were going to put the boat in again but after setting the croc trap at the causeway and seeing the hundreds of barra going off it's a no brainer!  Sleep in and see you soon!  xx

The Barra Lane....wish I had a polarised camera lense, there are in this photo about 7 barra lined up and at the back a large fish 80 to 90 cm......Unreal!!!

Small barra boof right of shot. I will try and post video on blog of dozens of barra boofing this area in a 30 second film take.....literally hundreds of barra in a 10 metre square!