Shady Camp

Hi Everyone
Here are some photos of Shady Camp in the NT about 100km east of Darwin. It is where Rick has been boasting the amount of Barra he caught! Not to mention we were up close to a few saltwater crocs and the sunsets were truly beautiful. We loved it here and wished we could have stayed longer. We had a great time!

Love Rick & Tegs

Our first look at the Mary River at high tide.



High tide about 11.30am



High tide standing on the barrage. Rick trying his hand at fishing. At this stage we just found
out it was illegal to use treble hooks. A kind man gave us some soft plastic lures with a single
hook to start us off. Otherwise we would not have been able to fish here at all.

Low tide on the barrage about 2.30pm.

Woo Hoo!!! Rick caught his first barra here for this trip! He was pretty stoked.



Too small to keep :( They have to be 55cm or bigger to keep.



Rick trying not to get his lure snagged on the rocks. Everyone here loses their lures on a regular basis so because we didnt have very many, Rick wasn't too happy when he would lose one!! Luckily at low tide, you can go and retrieve them from the rocks if you can. We were pretty lucky on the first day to gain a few more lures by doing that.

I was on croc watch while Rick was standing on the barrage like this. Everyone did it but it was still nerve racking.

Low Tide. It was amazing to see the water rise and fall so quickly!

Somehow I don't think this bird took the sign too seriously do you???

High tide again, Rick trying to catch dinner. The sun was setting and it was so relaxing :)

It was amazing how the sunset colours changed, the following photos show just that.

Love this photo. He was in his element...

Big barra!!! Yum-O, we have dinner AND lunch for tomorrow!! This barra was 67cm long.

Same 67cm barra.

The next day.

Bird life, they were everywhere here.

Millions of shrimp EVERYWHERE. Felt pretty gross on your feet when you walk through the water!!

Up close croc. I spotted this one as we were crossing the barrage from one side to the other. No one even realised he was there!! I wonder how long he was sitting there for eyeing us all off!!

Rick reeling a big one......

No......just a small one!!! This was the start of a LOT of Barra caught on this day but unfortunately they were mostly undersize so I think I stopped taking photos of each catch after the 10th one!!!

Croc revealing its big sharp teeth. Show off........

This one wasn't too bad but not big enough. Rick still had fun reeling it in. They put up a good fight!!!

The fillets of the barra caught the previous day. This wasn't even the whole fillet!!

Fish & Chips!!

Yum-O! Fish, chips and Salad!! We were in heaven! It was soooooo good!
And I don't even particularly like fish!!! That must say something :)

Rick got very good at reeling them in and then flicking them off when they weren't big enough.

YAY!!! I caught one too on my 2nd cast but I didn't fish much after that. I was too scared to get our precious lures snagged and we wouldn't have anything to use to catch the big ones!!

Another beautiful sunset......

On the next day when we were leaving, Rick caught a 55cm!!!! We were stoked! It was so exciting for Rick :)
The big grin on his face says it all!!!

Rick reeling in another big one.....it was putting up a good fight.....

This one was 53cm, just under the legal size!! Oh well. He still had fun catching it!

Comparing the 2 sizes. There wasn't much in them but still couldn't take the 53cm home

AND another one!!! Rick didn't want to leave now....he was onto a good thing!!! 3 big barras so far!

48cm

A Jabiru. This bird was amazing cruizing the banks, catching fish.

A BIG croc lurking in the waters. We kept a VERY close eye on this one......

A closer look. He was coming into where the boats launched into the water.

The birds didn't seem to care. I thought he would have gone for the kill but he never did.....

One of the locals showing me that he wasn't there to attack us. I didn't care, I still kept my distance and was going NOWHERE near the thing. I wasn't about to find out whether he was hungry for humans or not!!

This fella got pretty close. He was laughing at the ordeal. I wasn't.....

The Croc ended up heading up to where the fisherman gut the fish. He was definitely hungry...and he was HUGE!!!

The lovely couple who looked after us at Shady Camp. They gave us the lures that caught our barras. They were so nice and really helped us during our stay and were so excited when Rick finally caught his Barra to take home!! They too witnessed him reeling in the small ones time and time again.