If You Can’t Beat ‘Em….

It’s been raining on and off for the last two days and it was especially heavy overnight. The jungle drums have been beating and today the camp has filled to virtual capacity, all the permanently parked caravans now have occupants and many of the cabins are occupied too.

The rain will flush out the river and send fresh water out to sea signalling to the whitebait that it’s time to take a run up the river. That is, as long as you don’t stick to the bank and end up in one of the multitude of nets strategically placed along the banks.

Today many of the camp whitebaiters stayed in camp to fish rather than head up stream where the river in spate was stained brown, reasonably clear but with a lot of debris. The photos above & below were taken from the rocks outside our front door, there are more fishers around the corner above.

What? Who is that? By golly, it’s David!

Our neighbour, Gerald, told David as he was heading to the showers at a reasonably leisurely hour, that he would set up a net for him below the van. “Great” thought David as he finished his morning ablutions and wandered back to the van to cook his breakfast. It wasn’t long before he wondered where Gerald had gone and when he was going to show him what to do.

Gerald had long gone, down the beach to set up his own net, he’d positioned David’s net and tied it down and shot through. I told him (half an hour ago) the tide had turned and he better get out there. David was like “What? How do I work this thing?

Gerald having more luck than David...

Just sit patiently and wait……and wait……and clear the net of all the floating driftwood.….and wait……and check…..and wait…..and check again…

Before long he had moved up the rocks a little more into the flow and then he was getting advice from our neighbour on the other side.

And then it was back to waiting…..

then checking……

....and double checking.....

and then checking some more, surely there’s something down there……wait, something's moving......

One bloody shrimp! He couldn’t even use the whitebaiter’s secret lingo of  “Enough for a feed”, *wink, wink* when asked how much he had netted. Not even enough for half a shrimp cocktail!

I’m not sure David will be out there tomorrow morning, after all it is a Sunday and Sundays are for sleeping in…..


Part 2- Anatori; End Of The Road will be coming next......