Archive for North
Karumba 2010 – day 2
Posted by: | CommentsDay two started off at what I describe as “Gentlemans Hours” of a 9:00am launch at the ramp, and the first time that the boat had been in the water for close to 4 months; a testimony to the conflicts of weather and time to actually get out fishing.
The boat took a bit of time to get started, but not long after, the motor kicked in and there were no troubles with motoring up the river. The wind was at 15 to 20 knots blowing SSE making the trip upstream a bumpy one, but eventually I worked my way upstream into calmer waters and a nice big hole at 12m which was close to the bank.
12m hole in Norman River
This place showed up some good fish on the sounder but only were interested in mullet fillets; prawns were ignored and whole mullet was likewise ignored as well. The fishing we were told the previous day was not good at present, but I still had confidence that fish could be found if I looked hard enough and the sounder was giving good shows regularly. Still, it was time to head back to the ramp as the wind was picking up bit.
Back at the ramp, I beached the tinny and then went and grabbed the truck and trailer; on arrival back at the ramp, there was a queue up and the beach where the tinny was beached, was clear, so as it’s a 4×4 onto the sand we went. There’s just something special about a photo of a 4×4 with boat on trailer on the sand on a North Queensland beach, so check this out:
Ranger on the beach at Karumba Point
Once the boat was back, we found that we’d forgotten to lift any food out of the freezer; so it was over to the Sunset Tavern for dinner of roast beef and veges 
Roast Beef dinner at the Sunset Tavern
Oh, did I mention that there were a few beers consumed as well while watching the famous Karumba sunset go down ?
A Sunset Tavern beer and Karumba sunset - does it get any better?
And just to top the day off; a photo of the Sunset Tavern bar with the Barra mural:
The bar at the Sunset Tavern Karumba
What a week
Posted by: | CommentsWell with the week just gone it has been a roller coaster one to say the least.
I finally managed to pick up Matt’s cold after some 4 odd weeks of miraculously avoiding it; work has probably been the most inefficient I have been in months, mainly due to feeling like death warmed up for two to three days. On top of that Matt’s behavior hasn’t been the best at school and I had to go to a meeting with his teacher about that.
By Thursday, I was feeling a lot better and with the help of Codral day and night tablets; I was a bit closer to human again but still a bit lethargic so the week on that front wasn’t fun by any means.
With Karumba coming up in the next fortnight I was fearful of a dose of Bronchitis which I normally get with any flu once I get rid of it, but so far so good.
I had to put the Mac into Apple to have it fixed due to a crack in the chassis so have been using Windows for close to a week now and should get the Mac back on Tuesday thanks to a public holiday on Monday this coming week. Windows is seriously doing my head in and I can’t wait to get the Mac back again. To Apple’s credit though, I had the laptop put in on Monday last week and it was fixed ready to be picked up from the Chermside Apple Store in Brisbane by Wednesday; can’t complain about that and10/10 Apple for customer service!!
With this Monday being a public holiday, I decided to take Matt on a last 4WD trip before I leave him for close to a week to go fishing with my Dad in Karumba some 10 hours away for 7 days; it’s gonna hurt the little guy but I intend to to get a pre-paid Telstra USB dongle so I can Skype the little monkey and send him some photos from Karumba each night and chat for a while before he goes to bed. Once we get back we’ll go for a few trips as well as he will be on the second week of his holidays much the same as me so it won’t be too bad and I’m sure that he will be spoiled rotten to go with it
Speaking of Karumba; it’s peak Grunter season when we are there and there will be tons of “Grey Nomads” there as well, but this time (unlike last time) I have the benefit of experience with fishing the Gulf and even just looking back of the North Australian Fish Finder book in the Karumba section, I see so much more this time round than I did last time. I’m seriously excited this time and can feel that we will come home with some nice fish and great photos to go with it!
Ah well, best think about getting some sleep soon as it’s an 8:00am departure tomorrow morning to Cooktown via the Bloomfield Track. Lunch at the Lions Den Hotel and then to Cooktown to Grassy Hill with Matt and get some more photos on what is supposed to be a beautiful clear sunny Far North Queensland day. I Filled up the Ranger with Diesel today and reset the trip meter, so it will be interesting to see what mileage we get this time round for the trip.
Training wheels off!
Posted by: | CommentsYesterday was spent with Matthew as he asked on Saturday to have the training wheels removed from his bike.
He had asked for this previously, about 12 months ago – maybe a bit longer; and the result was that he asked for them to be put back on again so I treated this with skepticism. He also asked for a stand for his bike as with the training wheels off the bike, it wouldn’t stand up on it’s own, so I told him that we could get a stand so long as he was prepared to accept that the training wheels were never going back on again. He was happy with this so we went to go and get a stand yesterday morning for the shop where we bought his bike originally.
On arrival back home and $9.50 later, we removed the training wheels and fitted the stand. I then told him that at that stage, just after 12:00pm that it was too hot to go for a ride in the North Queensland sun and that we would go around 3:00pm and I would teach him to ride without the training wheels. This was expected to be a long ride as while he does have good balance; it’s not great.
At 3:30pm we packed his little bike into the boot and went off and found a quiet little street with a park that was relatively flat and not too bumpy for him to learn on. The way I figured it; grass is softer than bitumen, so while he was probably going to fall a few times and the trip was expected to result in tears.
Well, that was one assumption that was incorrect to say the least!
I started out holding the back of the seat on his bike and helping him; he got some good momentum up and I let go of the bike and he went some 5m before he realised that I wasn’t holding the bike anymore. I asked him why he stopped and that for a bit, he was riding all by himself to which he was surprised (me too on his first attempt!). So we tried again; and after a few stutters, he managed to get it right in regards to balance and he was now able to ride on his own; woohoo – independence!!!
Once he seemed to have the riding on grass bit down pat, I asked him to have a go on the road at the end of the culdesac that we were in as it would be easier for him without all the bumps in the park. He was happy to do this and he loved it; this was the same kid who some 15 minutes earlier was saying “Make sure you keep hold of my seat Dad”
What a difference the ability to ride without training wheels makes!
He’s now so proud that he can do this and he now has “independence” where he doesn’t need anyone to take him anywhere as “he can ride”; bearing in mind that he is too young at 5 to ride anywhere on his own, but the fact is still there that he doesn’t need anyone anymore to take him places.
There’s a BMX park near home so I can see us spending a “few” hours there over the coming months once I am confident that he can handle his bike a bit better as he’s still a bit wobbly on the steering.
