We went over to the camp hosts, Thelma and Murray, just before 7.30am and managed to secure ourselves a transfer to Mesa camp at the northern end of the park. We then had brekky and packed up the caravan, again leaving the boat to pick up later. Doug and Joan dropped over for a chat, as did Thelma and Murray. We exchanged phone numbers with Doug and Joan and goodbyes were said before we left.
At Mesa we were greeted by camp host, Greg, who informed us that our friends, Cal and Paula Baker, and their boys Charlie and Kade, had already arrived. We weren’t expecting them until the following day, so that was a nice surprise. They were down at the beach having a swim when we pulled in and returned a few minutes later to hugs and handshakes. It was great to see them again, the first time in two years, since our last trip to Melbourne. Sue and I had met Cal and Paula 18 years earlier during our first trip around Australia. They had been travelling like us, and we hooked up together experiencing many good times.
The kids immediately hit it off, with the 4 of them disappearing into the sand dunes to play. After setting up the van, Cal and I went for the drive back to Pilgramunna to pick up our tinnie.
That afternoon, Cal and I dropped the tyre pressures on his cruiser, to check out the possibility of launching the tinnies in the sheltered bay adjacent to our camp. The sand was firmer than expected, so it looked good for a launch the next day.
Sue, Paula and the kids went down to the beach for a swim, before Sue and Paula took a short walk up the beach towards Neds Camp. The adults later enjoyed happy hour and a good catch up, while the young-uns again disappeared into the dunes . . . . back to their secret hideout. We retrieved the children for dinner, well after sunset.
Georgia and Kelsey enjoying a swim with new best mates, Charlie & Kade
Sue with Paula & Cal, enjoying a drink at sunset
Mesa sunset
Our children . . . . Lords of the Dunes
That night Sue and I wrapped Georgia’s presents for her birthday the next day.
Mesa - Cape Range NP – 20 September 2012
The birthday girl arose at 6.30am to many colourful presents. Although she knew most of what she was getting, mum and dad managed to slip in a couple of surprises as well. It was a big birthday after all, reaching double figures…. 10 years old today.
Spoilt rotten . . . .
After a hearty breakfast of egg and bacon, we packed up the van and moved to the other side of the camp, 30m away, which now gave us an unobstructed water view over the bay to our north. Following set up, we piled into the car, drove to Yardie Homestead and put on 3 loads of washing. We all showered and then headed into Exmouth to the post office. Here we picked up a load of mail, including many cards for the birthday girl. Some even contained cash! Lunch was next, at Graces Tavern, where the girls devoured a huge family pizza between them. Unbelievable!!
Pizza Piggies . . .
After the usual round of shopping, fuel, water collecting, etc. we returned to Yardie Homestead and picked up our dry laundry.
A pair of Kori Bustards welcomed us back to camp
Back at camp we shared a sausage sizzle with Cal, Paula and the boys, followed by icecream cake for all.
Birthday dinner at it's best . . . . a hot sausage in bread with your mates
The birthday girl with Mum, Dad & sister Kelsey . . . (now put down the camera & cut the cake already)
Mesa - Cape Range NP – 21 September 2012
The girls did some of their journals after breakfast, while I finished mine outside the van. I had a visitor in the form of a lone corella, who I nicknamed Crackers. He wasn’t shy at all, so the girls bought out some bread out and were able to hand feed him. He popped in for many visits over the course of our stay.
Crackers enjoying a piece of multigrain with Georgia
Sue schooled the girls during the morning, while I finished setting up camp ie. the ensuite, clothes line, etc. After lunch, Charlie taught Georgia how to play chess while Sue got her diary up to date. Then I tied some fishing rigs, while Sue and Paula went for another walk along the beach. It was very windy, so hence no fishing. Later in the afternoon, Cal and Paula came over to our van and we watched Collingwood v Swans battle it out in the AFL semi-final. This time Collingwood weren’t up to it, with Sydney winning by 20 odd points. Later we all had dinner together.
Mesa - Cape Range NP – 22 September 2012
Calvin and Paula transferred their van this morning, from the far side of the camp, to two sites down from us, also giving them a great view of the water.
The kids played together during the morning and after lunch Sue and I grabbed a couple of rods and a few lures, and went for a walk north along the beach up past Ned’s camp. We cast soft plastic lures along the way without any success, until finally I hooked something, only about 10m from the beach. In the choppy wind blown water it was hard to see what I had on, but after a spirited fight, I beached a nice little golden trevally of about 2kg. We were rapt, as this was our first golden for the trip and was one fish we were hoping to catch before we returned to Brisbane. We bled it, bagged it and packed it in the back pack for the return trip against the wind. It was a hard slog in the soft sand.
A nice little golden trevor from the beach
Back at camp the girls had a swim with the Baker crew, before we went up to happy hour with the rest of the campers. We chatted to our next door neighbour, Dianne, and a Kiwi by the name of Keith.
Cal later cooked us a beautiful feed of mackerel in beer batter, perfectly accompanied by a knockout potato bake from Sue. The kids enjoyed a movie, while we enjoyed a few more drinks.
The chef and his taste-tester sampling some pretty awesome mack-in-batter
Mesa - Cape Range NP – 23 September 2012
We woke up this morning to a bit of a disaster, the solar panel had blown over in the wind during the night and smashed the glass on one half of the panel. My silly fault for leaving it sitting too vertical over night. We did some school work with the kids during the morning and then prepared the boat and car for a launch at our local beach. We thought we had let the tyres down far enough, but both Cal and I managed to get ourselves bogged in the soft sand. We extracted ourselves with the assistance of his homemade Maxx Traxx i.e. two sheets of aluminium chequer plate.
We left the beach and headed out towards a gap in the reef of about 200m, otherwise known as South Passage. We started trolling and immediately had a double hook up on bludger trevally. Further trolling only produced a small cod, so we headed off to shallower water to see if we could find something else worth fishing. The Bakers headed off in another direction to do the same. The wind picked up quite quickly and made conditions pretty uncomfortable, so after a grand total of only 2 hours, we gave up and returned to the beach.
After lowering the tyre pressures even further, we retrieved both tinnies without incident.
That afternoon Cal and I went to the bore and filled some buckets with water and later we all went to happy hour.
Mesa - Cape Range NP – 24 September 2012
Our friendly souwester was blowing its guts again this morning, so we readied the tinnies hoping we might find some sheltered water on the other side of the peninsula at Bundegi. Upon arrival we discovered that the wind had more south than west in it, and we were greeted by a very choppy Gulf. We gave up on the fishing idea and filled up our drinking water containers with desalinated water at the fish cleaning table.
We then headed into town and dropped into the post office. Sue and the girls later did some grocery shopping, while I chased down a replacement boat roller for our trailer and picked up some fuel. I picked up the girls and as we left town we gave my sister, Aunty Lisa, a call. Both our girls had a chat and then we gave Cal and Paula a call to see where they were. They’d returned to Bundegi to see if the wind had eased, but unfortunately there was no change. We said we would meet them back at camp. We decided to return to town and get some icecreams and buy Sue a pair of thongs.
Back at camp we enjoyed another happy hour at the communal tables.
Mesa - Cape Range NP – 25 September 2012
This morning the wind still hadn’t stopped blowing, so Sue and I spent the morning in the van planning our return journey to Queensland.
Cal dropped over and said he was going to go and fish anyway, so I decided to join him in his boat. We trolled the gap initially and picked up bludger trevally and many barracuda, all of which were released. Cal hooked a slightly better fish at one stage, which screamed off at a great rate of knots, leading us to believe it had a shark on its tail. Cal free-spooled it to give it a chance to escape the shark, which it did, but it bricked him on a bommie at the same time and he lost his favourite mackerel lure.
He re-rigged and we did another trolling pass, again hooking barracuda. This time Cal’s fish didn’t escape the shark and the shark managed to hook itself on the lure. He handed the rod to me while he drove the boat and I managed to get a bronze whaler of about 5 to 6 feet long next to the boat in around 5 minutes. Unfortunately for Cal, the shark either bit or wore through the trace and he was now down two lures.
We gave up on the trolling and tried drifting and casting to coral bommies in shallower water. Cal managed to pick up a nice spangled emperor of about 45cm, balancing the ledger somewhat. We retrieved the boat soon after and returned to camp.
Sue had spent her day planning potential stops for our trip home and had enjoyed a good chat with one of our neighbours, Val, who had told her of the good fishing to be had at 40 Mile Beach, south of Karratha.
Later that arvo, Sue and Paula went for another beach walk and then we all had showers. Cal had kept a big feed of barramundi from the Roper River to share with us, and tonight he cooked a magnificent meal of barra in his own beer batter recipe, perfectly accompanied by another potato bake ala Sue.
Mesa - Cape Range NP – 26 September 2012
Up at 6.00am, we launched both boats by 7.00am. The wind was down, so we trolled the gap for starters, but could only raise the usual suspects, bludger trevally and barracuda. Both boats headed south hugging the coast to avoid the wind, which had picked up to around 15 knots. We stayed close to the coast and cast to a few bommies, while the Bakers headed further out inside the reef.
Georgia hooked a nice little long tom while casting a gold bomber over shallow bommies in only 2m of water. She was rapt ,as this was her first fish taken casting lures. We returned to the gap and started bait fishing while drifting. We caught many small cod and a few other reefies, keeping 5 of the larger cod. Cal had dropped the family off back at the beach and returned to bait fish over a bommie where he’d caught his best mackerel years earlier.
We continued fishing nearby and Sue hooked a real hooter, which gave her a really good stretch. It turned out to be a ripper bluebone of around 3kg, perfect for the table. We were really rapt with this fish, as it was our first legal size bluebone, another wish fish from our list.
While cleaning the fish back at the beach, Cal returned with 3 keepers of his own, a spangley, a wrasse and a stripey.
The kids amused themselves on the beach, burying Charlie, while Cal & I cleaned the fish
Thanks to Calvin’s tails of glory on the Spanish mackerel at Point Samson, Sue and I decided to visit his macko spot as we returned up the coast, so we headed into the Visitors Centre to book ourselves a spot at the van park from the public phone. Unfortunately it was out of order, so we headed north to Yardie Homestead Caravan Park to call from there. We needn’t have bothered, as they had plenty of vacant sites at Point Samson. We said goodbye to the park manager, Miffi, and exchanged phone numbers, hoping to catch up with her, in her home state of Tassie, on a trip down the track sometime.
Mesa - Cape Range NP – 27 September 2012
I started today by packing up all the gear for our departure the next morning, paying particular attention to cleaning off any salt and sand from the tinnie and trailer. We had wanted to snorkel at Lakeside on our last day, but the wind was still blowing and I took longer than expected with my pack up, so we missed out. Sue went for a long solo walk on the beach.
Mesa camp, with our van in the centre & Cal & Paula's at the far right
A closer shot of our camp
The beach view from our site at Mesa
Cal and Paula went into town in the morning and picked up a package for Sue from the post office, that she had been waiting on with great relish. It held a Collingwood guernsey that she had ordered online, and which she wore to our final happy hour that night, much to the disgust of many at the table.
Our last happy hour at Mesa (& Cape Range) . . . . gotta photoshop that rotten jumper . . .
Last drinks . . . . .
We enjoyed our last supper with Calvin and Paula, another sausage sizzle followed by a very decadent chocolate icecream cake.
I was on cake duty . . . anxiously watched by 4 ravenous beasts
Come on Kelsey, the cake wasn't that good . . . . . serious brain-freeze . . . .
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