Mary River - Adelaide River
Northern Territory

With coffee in hand we hit the river around 7am on Wednesday. It is such a beautiful time of day. The Arnhem Hwy crossed the river not far downstream from our camp at Mary River Wilderness Retreat and Brian thought the 4 sets of pylons under the bridge would be a perfect spot to get Barra. It didn't take long before I had a couple of good strikes on my lure.

                                                  Early mornings on the river are stunning

You have to be either highly skilled or bloody lucky to turn a strike into a catch and we were neither. On the way back we checked the cherabin (I have been incorrectly spelling it cherubin) pots and were surprised to find one had been totally destroyed....mmm....crocodile! There were no cherabin in the others.

                                              This is a big freshie but there were salties too   

After breaky I walked James without a lead using voice command to maintain control, even though there were dozens of wallabies in every direction. I had been working on this method of control pretty successfully and thought I had him under check - but no - the little sebastion took off like a shot out of a gun after a pack of roos and headed into thick bush. I called and called but with no response. I went back to the van and got Brian to help me search. I was in a total panic because he had been gone for a good 15 minutes and I was sure the larger wallabies would attack him or lead him to water and drown him. Or he'd attract the attention of the many crocs we had seen nearby.
Eventually we found him absolutely exhausted, wet and filthy. He got a bath, put on the lead and sent to the naughty spot for the rest of the day.

Late morning we went back out on the river with a picnic lunch (minus James, much to his chagrin) and threw some lures around where a small creek intersected with the river. We did it for a good 40 minutes with nothing and Brian wanted to move to another spot. "Just one more cast", I said ...and would you believe it ...... I hooked something pretty big. As I reeled him in Brian was yelling "it's a big Barra" and guess what... it was! I actually caught a 78cm Barra on a lure and landed it. Pure SKILL! I was so excited. You could not wipe the smile off my face. When we got back to camp Brian filleted it and we got enough fillets for three good feeds for the two of us. Brian pan fried a couple on the Baby Q for dinner. It tasted absolutely beautiful. It just melted in your mouth.

                                                              Smile, smile, smile

In the afternoon Brian gave me a haircut (my first in over 3 months). He used my Remington Professional Haircut Kit (the one that I clip James with) and an 18mm trimming guide which he just ran all over my head. The he got to work with the bare clippers and did around my ears and the back hair line. Finally he finished off with the thinning scissors around my face and through the thick bits. And you know what? It looks like crap!

                                                  Mmmmm......looks like I've had a few!

Just joking babe ...it's actually not too bad.

Thursday started as had become the norm at MRWR with a stint on the river before breakfast. We returned to camp empty handed as usual and decided to go for a drive up to Shady Creek. We left straight after a work session for Brian at the Bark Hut Inn (twice daily visits to get mobile coverage) travelling east on the Arnhem Hwy for 10km before taking a left turn to head toward Van Diemen Gulf.

                                 
                                                    The Bark Hut Inn (it is made of bark!)

Shady Creek is a well known fishing spot on the Mary River around 25km upstream from the mouth. The 50 km of road to it is half sealed and the dirt section is fine for towing a van. We did think we could maybe do a couple of cheap nights there ($3.30 pp honesty box) and potentially improve our success rate with the barra. There were two other vans camped at the quite large park which sits right on a couple of good boat ramps separated by a barrage. The barrage stops the salt water from moving upstream. One boat ramp runs down into sea water and the other, only 100 metres away, into fresh.
The camping area was not bad but it was a "No pets" space, not that we would probably have worried about that if we were only staying one night, but unless we're in transit we figure we need at least two nights to get a feel for a place. And if we're fishing we need two or three days. There wasn't anywhere the boat could be tied up to the bank either, nor was it as pretty a spot as MRWR, so we decided against relocating.

We are having a bit of trouble with the battery system in the van. For some reason the battery does not re-charge when we are plugged into 240 volt. Normally our solar panels would lift the battery charge but we are parked under a thick, shady tree so we aren't getting any power generated form the panel either. We'll make a call to Jayco to see if they can advise what the problem/solution is. We may have to book the van in at Darwin Jayco or go to an automotive electrician.

Aside from my Barra, the fishing over the last few days hadn't been that good and we were getting a bit disillusioned with it, so yesterday we decided we would do one more night at MRWR and would spend the day cleaning. The van was covered in red dust, windows and flyscreens filthy, bikes disgusting and boat smelly.


We followed the normal morning routine - fishing, breaky, Bark Hut - then we hit the scrubbing brushes and together we worked like ten men till we had everything looking shiny and new. It was quite humid so we got really hot and sweaty. Thank God for ice cold beers and swimming pools!
Later in the day James and I drove the boat downstream to the ramp at full speed. It goes like a cut cat with one up and a small dog (sitting in my chair in the front of course) and we had a play zooming up and down the river while we waited for another boat to vacate the ramp. It is so much easier launching and retrieving with Blackie's trailer.

                                              We loved the pool tho it was very warm water

                                                        We like driving the boat

Just before dark Brian and I went for a ride around the property on the freshly cleaned bikes. We were pretty happy with our day's efforts - the boat washed and stowed on top of the now clean Beast, fresh linen on the bed and windows we could see through. We decided to leave packing chairs, tables, mats etc till the morning.

Big mistake - it absolutely poured down raining all night. Bugger!

The heavy rain overnight caused mayhem for some of our neighbours - collapsed awnings, drenched bedding and washed out camps. Our outdoor stuff was saturated and we debated whether to stay another day at MRWR to dry it out. Brian surveyed the scene and made the call to move on early and get it out to dry at Adelaide River, where we would spend one night en-route to the Daly.

On the road we listened to the final few chapters of "Life of Pi". We both agreed it was a rather unusual story - entertaining but often laborious. We picked up a few supplies at Humpty Do and were set up at the (this time) very crowded Adelaide River Inn caravan park by lunchtime. Our last stay at AR had been three weeks ago and it was relatively quiet, as was the Stuart Highway. We were surprised by the huge increase in RV travellers heading north. I can see why the NT locals and newspapers talk about the "Grey Nomad Invasion".

Aside from breaking our trip into two small days of travel, the main reason for calling into AR was to fill up our tanks with water. The water at the Adelaide River Inn is absolutely delicious. It is clear and slightly soft, and sooo much nicer than water we have tasted at any other spot in the NT. We also wanted to stay somewhere we both had network coverage so as to touch base with family and friends, update the blog and so Brian could get all his work stuff in order before going completely off the radar, as will probably be the case at Daly River.

Late in the day after washing, drying, tank filling and work we had a long swim in the pool then took a bike ride to Mt Bundy Station, a few km east of the highway. Aside from our caravan park behind the pub, accommodation at AR is available at the very barren showgrounds (which we'd checked out last time and didn't like) or Mt Bundy. We rode in and around it to find what appeared to be a working farm property set right on the Adelaide River with sites dotted through it, lots of animals and plenty of space. We liked it and will no doubt try it out when next passing through. We had to pedal home hard with the power settings on the electric bikes  set on high to beat an approaching storm. We made it back to the van in the nick of time before the heavens opened up.
                                                    
This morning we are off to Daly River....at long last!