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by Mike Turner
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Once I had camped out for the first time it all became much easier. The fact that I could roadside camp meant that I did not have to plan my day’s to finish at a caravan park, I had much more freedom to drive slower, take in the scenery and stop and explore whenever I wanted. The best part of all though was that outside of the fire ban season, plenty of suitable wood could be quickly gathered for the traditional camp fire. It did not take too long before I was able to use my camp fire for cooking, heating and light.
I should mention that on the journey North, before Alice Springs I veered West for a while to visit Ayers Rock, Uluru as it is called by the indigenous people. It certainly was not how I imagined it would be, it was much larger and had green and verdant areas at the base of the monolith. The visitors centre there was one of the most interesting that I had visited throughout the whole of Australia. I carried on down to The Olgas, an incredible rock formation only a short drive from Uluru. The winds that can blow through the crevices between the rocks quite take your breath away.
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I then backtracked, but on the return to the Stuart Highway I turned left onto the Luritja Road and headed for Kings Canyon. This is somewhere that often gets overlooked by those going to Uluru, a massive shame for those who miss it. The walk up, around and back down the Canyon is simply awesome. There is a slight detour for the fit and able to visit The Garden of Eden, an oasis amongst all this massive stand of rock. The camp site at Kings Canyon is very well run and has great facilities.
Without wishing to go into too much detail that I’m sure would bore the reader to death, my journey continued North through Tennant Creek, where I had a very comical meeting with a young Aboriginal guy, on up to Katherine, where I camped up for a couple of very noisy nights due to the millions of fruit bats coming back to their roosting spots and also took a boat trip up Katherine Gorge, an absolute must do. From there it was up to the fabulous Kakadu National Park, the location for the filming of Crocodile Dundee. The Aboriginal rock paintings, the natural waterfalls, the crocodiles, the water fowl, the water buffalo and even the wild boar, make this a place everyone should visit at least once in their lifetime.
My next stop was at Darwin, other than the Museum about the devastation caused by various different cylones that have hit the city over the past hundred and fifty years, I found little of interest to keep me here. So it was then that I made my way out of Northern Territory and into Queensland, heading for a little fishing town called Karumba. I had heard many good reports about the boat fishing in the Gulf of Carpentaria, and I wanted to catch myself a memorable fish.
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I booked a charter boat for the following day but was I was told not to expect too much as the water temperature had been a little cold of late. I had an early night in preparation for the early morning start next day. When I got to the meeting point there were seven other tourist’s there waiting, all hoping to catch that whoppa of a fish. There was a good mix of Aussies and foreigner’s, and soon the jokes were flying thick and fast. Alan, the boat captain seemed to gain in spirit when the sun came bursting through, he dipped the water
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with a thermometer and proclaimed that “we could be in for a very good trip”. How prophetic were those words. We had been on the boat for a couple of hours without anyone getting a single bite, then all of a sudden there was a strong pull on my line. The line was being stripped off my reel at an amazing rate and Alan asked the others on board to reel their lines in so I did not get snagged on them. After what seemed like an eternity of fighting this strong and plucky fish, it was landed, a really decent sized Queenfish. After having my photo taken with the beauty I expected the fish to be returned to the water. Alas that was not the case. It was quickly dispatched and, to be honest, made for very good eating for all on board as there was plenty to share. After this experience I went on quite a few chartered boat fishing trips, from many different towns around the coast of Australia, and only had one trip that turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Don’t get me wrong, the trip out on the boat was good, it was just that between every single person on the charter, we only caught a couple of small whiting.
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