Off adventuring again.
After we dropped off the boy we went to Magowan’s to fuel up, this set us back $2.20litre 300 litres later we motored around to Honeymoon Bay and have been here for 3 days changing oil in the motors, washing, spring cleaning, lighting fires on the beach and having sing-along’s and socialising.
We have decided to travel further west to Bigge island and stop in at various places on the way. After we finish with Bigge island we are going to start our trek back to Darwin.
We certainly have seen some sights on our way to Bigge island we headed for Swift bay and when we got there a croc was sitting on the beach, this bloke was f..ing huge we tried to get closer and Tess got some good footage of this monster running back into the water, we stayed for the night, the next day we decided to get some fresh water from a spring that feeds into Swift bay. A very thoughtful person has placed a PVC pipe from the spring to a rock ledge so that you can fill containers easily, I took this 1 step further and made up a hose bucket combination that enabled me to fill our containers in the dingy rather than haul the containers up to the rock ledge which meant crossing slippery rocks.
We soon had the water tank full and another spare 40 litres of drinking water, the water here is first class. Tess and I packed up the hose contraption then dutifully sat under the PVC pipe and had a good half hour enjoying the cool water running over us , I did a calculation of the water flow and about 14,000 litres per day flows into the bay, at this time of year the flow is one tenth compared to the wet season that’s a heap of water going nowhere.
Leaving Swift bay behind us we went to the Wollaston Island group, not another boat in sight, we anchored opposite a balancing rock off one of the islands, we will have a look for some caves here tomorrow. Found where the caves are but too rugged a track would have to be negotiated so we opt out, we head for another anchorage on the mainland which has access to a small river which is unnamed, we dingy up this river to find a fish breeding oasis, there are Barra everywhere and they show themselves quite readily.
On getting to the end of the river there was supposed to be fresh water but it may be too late in the season for it to be running, heaps of muddy water and red crabs everywhere soon reminds us that we are alone... VERY... alone, you get that shiver down your spine that says “get the fuck out of here NOW’ so you listen and make a fast exit ...
It is amazing the charter boats aren’t working this river but then again it probably hasn’t been discovered yet or the crocs ate the trespassing fishermen....
Time for us to go over to a few small islands to find some Bradshaw Abo paintings, we ended up finding them without leaving the dingy, they appeared above us as we passed a few cliffs, this was great, saved the old legs a bit.
Our next destination is Capstan Island where there are these crazy balancing rocks, mother nature has done the impossible again, there is no way these rocks should be balancing the way they do, if you built the same thing the bastard would fall over at the first passing of flatulence.....
On to Bigge island where there are some easy to get to Abo paintings on the east and west side of the island. We do the east first and find the paintings easily, they are under a rock shelf which spans some 40 metres, on seeing the span I flex the bum cheeks to avert a major rock fall should I let go a 1000 decibel bottom burp..... it would be hard for a blokes family to live with the headlines “Major rock fall caused by excessive wind kills cave adventurer......”
Over to the east side Wary Bay has spectacular paintings, they are in caves on the beach so getting to them is easy, this is the first time that we have seen hand prints and paintings of square rigger ships, the other thing is a huge painting which indicates a burial site, the other curious paintings have the indigenous smoking pipes... one would presume that the early Dutch sailors would have made landfall and made contact with the locals introducing them to tobacco in the hope of trading, this of course would never happen ( the trading that is) as they had nothing to trade, I suppose they tried to trade some of their women, I reckon this happened and the Duchies took off at such a rate they left their smoking pipes behind. Imagine being given a woman that would not work, expect you to hunt all day while she frolicked in the sea and smelled like the Sydney fish market after it had been locked up for 2 weeks in the summer...... who wouldn’t leave the place to a pommy (Captain Cook). I’m glad they did though.
Time to leave so we head around to Catamaran Bay which is a sandy cay surrounded by cliffs, the entrance in is narrow then widens out to about 300 metres by 400 metres we anchor in the centre and the water is as clear as you’d ever get. The tide drops and when we are just about aground we check for crocs and dive in, the water is cool and refreshing, we paddle around for awhile and soon the water drops to zero depth as the tide recedes.
Time for an adventure walk. Tess opts out for a nana nap so I tromp off on my own with the trusty spear in hand, I walk up into some mangroves which are growing in the sand, looking for signs of crocs I stop and look around, stone the crows a 2.5 metre croc is lying on the sand less than a metre from me.... for some reason I did not panic or feel threatened... this bloke was not moving... I decided to walk away keeping an eye on him, back to the boat to get the camera. Tess would not come with me as she reckons I’m mad as a hatter so I walk back to the croc for a photo shoot.
After spending a bit of time with the croc I have a good video and photo’s. I tried to get the croc to go for the water but he just lay there looking at me.
Later in the day Tess got the braves up and came over to have a look, she got within 25 metres and that was her limit, it was a good effort as she hates crocs.
So swimming when the tide comes in is defiantly not going to happen, in the evening as the tide came in the croc made a move to the water, when the sun had gone down Tess spotted the croc next to the boat, they are inquisitive animals and I suppose this thing floating in its territory was worth investigation. This bloke stayed round us all night and at one stage had its nose touching the duckboards looking up at us with a lonely look as if saying ‘please cuddle me I’m all alone ’crikey in the croc world this bloke is a poofter.....
We left Catamaran Bay and the poofter croc in the morning, as we passed an island 4 boats appeared and we were all sailing in the same direction, that evening we all anchored in the same bay and had drinks as the sun set, the next day we and 2 of the boats went to Freshwater bay for the evening.
On the way in to Freshwater bay Tess hooked up a Mackeral that tried to pull her overboard, we lost the fish when it took a dive under the boat which in hindsight was a good thing as this fish was huge and we had nowhere to store 30 kilos of fish...
We went for a swim in the creek the next morning before departing to McGowan’s to take on fuel, we had to wait overnight as the tide was wrong to get fuel that afternoon, in the morning we went through the usual McGowan’s bullshit and it took two and a half hours to put 200 litres of diesel in the tanks.....these people couldn’t run a race let alone a business.
We made our way around to Honeymoon Bay where we love it, Tess organised a lift into Kalumbaru for the next day so we can get a few supplies and send off an e-mail.
Well we have everything sorted on the boat for the trip back to Darwin, we will stop at Cape Talbot for a night then see how the weather is before heading to Darwin.
Left Cape Talbot but should have stayed, the weather came in from the South East and we copped a flogging for 8 hours, I decided to delay the crossing over to Darwin and made our way to Glycosmis Bay, this was a slight backward step but who cares we were getting the shit pounded out of us, we stayed for 2 days then for a change in scenery went to the King George River.
The waterfalls were only a trickle compared to when we first seen them in July, we needed water so I rigged up a bucket siphon contraption which worked extremely well, we collected 70 litres of water in 5 minutes but just about sunk the dingy, we had to be under the waterfall to fill the bucket contraption. Tess was the official collector of water while I kept the dingy in place, she was saturated and the water was a cool 12 degrees, it was a great laugh except for the fact that the water was some 60 metres deep under the falls and we were just about sunk....
The weather report came through and we decided to go to Darwin, so off we went and that is the last of our trip through the wonderful Kimberly’s, we hope you have enjoyed with us our adventure.
Robbie and Tess.

written by  Nightmoves on September 3, 2010 from Darwin, Australia
from the travel blog: Robbie and Tess around Australia
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We get back to ground we had already covered and I find the steering is damaged, the wheel is extremely hard to turn and now the main concern is blowing a hose in the hydraulic steering and not having any steering at all miles from anywhere. I remember that I can turn off the starboard rudder from the port rudder. We drop anchor in safe water and hope that the port rudder is still intact, the starboard rudder is turned off and bloody ripper the steering frees up and we have steerage from the port rudder only but that is awesome.
The starboard rudder is set straight in line with the hull so it will not affect the course of the boat, we will have to find a sandbank to put the boat on near high tide so when the tide goes out we can then see the full extent of the damage. A fellow Don McCloud who lives up the river pulled up to chat with us, as we told him of what had happened he was not surprised as 7 other boats had come to grief in the same place. The guide is totally wrong and Don had told the writers of the guide on several occasions over the past 2 years to rectify the problem before someone gets badly injured or sunk.” If you sink up here you can get eaten”.
I will most certainly be speaking to the authors of the guide and find out why they have not heeded Dons calls, you do expect some accuracy when your forking out 80 bucks for a cruising guide, we will continue with our journey until we get to Broome in October where the boat can be repaired, the worst thing is with the starboard rudder out of action we don’t have auto pilot so I will have to hand steer... Been years since I’ve done that ... 1989 to be exact....
Day 11
Today the tides have got higher in the morning so at 6.00am the dreaded alarm goes off and it’s time to go to a sandbank I checked out yesterday. So anchored up and waited for the low tide to come, where we are there is only 1 tide per day and you have to be very carefull when you dry out as it’s 12 hours before you can get off..
It took 3 hours (10am) to finally be just touching the sand , when there was about 1 foot of water(2.00pm) to run out it was time to check out the damage on the rudder. I was expecting worse than what I seen and I suppose was glad things were less. Camera in hand taking shots of the good rudder and the damaged rudder I then noticed the propeller was slightly damaged but not enough to effect performance.
I rang Don McCloud old mate at the camp to see if he had a crow bar as the rudder may be able to be bent into its normal position, Don had one and brought it down along with his 3 grand children, we tried to bend the rudder back but to no avail. Oh well that’s life so we chatted for an hour then when Don went to leave his dingy was aground and as it weighed 750 kgs it was not going to move, now the next tide for him to get off was 8 hours away, we sent his eldest grandchild away in our blue dingy to get Don’s spare dingy from his camp 5 miles up the river.
Don needed his spare dingy to get his mob back to camp as my little dingy would not carry all of them, doing 2 trips was out of the question as it would have taken forever, so while we waited for the spare dingy to arrive we sat down for a billy and a yarn. Don was full of information about the local area, I asked him about the crocs and to my surprise he told us that a couple of years ago poachers had gone through the river and taken all but about 20 crocs out of about a 130....
Don has lived on the river for 10 years and is quite concerned about how fragile the eco system is, you don’t think that in this rugged remote area that would be possible but when people start charter boat fishing trips they soon deplete the fish stocks as they hit the same reefs day after day. The reefs up here are few and far between the area is mostly sandy and in the rivers there is not much marine mud for fish breeding, even the mud crabs are few as they have a season when they appear which is September to December. The Kimberly’s being a fishing haven is Bullshit The pelagic species are in abundance but that is the same in most unpopulated areas, the resident fish are the one’s under pressure and the place will become an ocean desert in a few years if left unchecked.
Back to the crocs which got poached, a skin(10 foot croc)if taken off correctly fetches around $12,000.00 dollars on the black market. A crocs skull and jaw bones get $3,000.00 dollars, so if the poachers got over a hundred crocs 10 foot long in 2 days that’s 1.5 million dollars, I think I want to be a poacher..... It is very lucrative but if you get caught you would have steel bars in front of your face for a long time.
Near Dons camp there are Abo paintings in caves nearby, we will be going back there in late July so will see them then.
Day 12
Up early we are floating and off we go, Honeymoon Bay is our destination and I get my first taste of hand steering with which I am very unaccustomed, you just can’t take your eyes off the compass and when you do your all over the place like a drunken horse. Thank King Neptune the distance is minimal and my suffering only lasts a few hours.
When we arrive the place is a hive of activity with fishermen launching boats, Quad bikes roaring along bush tracks and beaches, people swimming, I took my bike over to a boat ramp to ride around to see what this place had to offer, ended up yarning to a local who later I nicknamed “Sarge” he’s ex army and his boats are painted with camouflage paint, he informed me that an Abo named Les lived just up the road and he is a storyteller and it would well be worth spending a few hours listening to his life experiences.
Old Les it turns out had gone walkabout to some place and would not be back for a few days.... I reckon the old coon has gone to a town with grog to get on the piss as this is a dry area. Anyway will catch up with him when we come back this way later on. The camp ground here is very basic as are the facilities, we need to get water but not from here, the water is poor quality and we have been told that there is good water at a place called McGowans around the next bay so we will try there tomorrow.
We ventured into the water for a swim just off the shore in waste deep water and it was crackerjack.
A call came over the radio from Coastwatch that 25 people were seeking asylum on a boat out past Bouganville Point, they had contacted a boat nearby and asked if they could stand by the boat until a Navy boat would arrive in a few hours, the captain of the boat was hesitant to do so then Coastwatch reminded him that as a law of the sea he should give assistance to a vessel asking for help, this the captain agreed to and he stood off the boat until the Navy arrived.
Day 13
Woke up to a magnificent sunrise the water was a glass out as far as the horizon, we watched some antics at the boatramp and it was defiantly the lampoons fishing adventure.... this mob launched 2 dingys and for half an hour they pulled the crap out of their outboards before getting them to start, when they started there was more smoke than world war 2 engulfing the boatramp.... one of the boats putted out towards us and the head of this lampoon boat said,’ gudday mate, we’ve ad a rough trip up e’re on the roads... broke a fuel line in the outboard an’ busted off me gear lever off the outboard as well...” he showed me the separated gear lever as he said “She works alright now just gotta make sure the gear lever don’t go overboard...” Crikey this bloke is a gem, taking his family out in the Kimberlys with a gear lever in hand which should be connected to the outboard... I will await the mayday call later... the second dingy was now underway and as they chuffed off into the distance the last words we heard from them was “ did anybody bring some bait”....... some mothers do have em...
Tried to sail around to McGowan’s but when the boat speed did not even make 1 knot I gave up, we happily motored along and found the place without any trouble. Tess spotted a tap on the beach with a hose attached, you ripper, Tess had a yarn to a sheila on a motor cat moored just off the beach and asked what was here she was very helpfull, eventually I raised McGowan’s on the radio and asked to get some water, they told me to contact Colin who was on the beach..... somewhere.... I sent Tess over to the beach to find Colin and she found him sweeping the dirt around a tree.... you meet all kinds around here...
After a quick g’day Tess asked the question about the water and Colin said how much do you normally pay for water, that was enough to get Tess into top gear, we never pay for water and its the necessity of life, Mate.. he hinted at 10 bucks then dropped that and succumbed to Tess’s charm. So I put Nightmoves up on the shore and the hose reached the fill point easily, it took an hour to fill and now we are set for another 2 weeks without having to use our backup tank.
Day14
After a pleasant sleep we were off to Truscott where my boy will meet us in a couple of weeks for a holiday up here, no wind again so we motored over and found the place. It was an absolute shithole to say the least, a sign on the barge ramp prattles on about being a WW2 heritage site.... it seems that somewhere along the line it was forgotten to tell the users of this facility, that you take your empty fuel drums with you...... There would have to be over a thousand drums tossed into the wilderness to happily rust away, the tyres left behind are a bit more orderly they’ve been tossed on the beach !!!!!
By the way you can get fined for trespassing what a joke. We left there and went to Anjo Bay which is still on the mainland and anchored for the night.
Day 15
Today we are going to another area Vinsittart Bay 20 miles west of Anjo Bay which has all sorts of islands and stopoffs, we decide to go to Jar Island which is at the bottom of the bay. We have read that there are Aboriginal cave paintings on the island so we want to try and find them, no wind again so we have to motor, when we get to Jar Island it seems very hostile as the rock formations are very broken and strewn about , navigating here is a bit of a worry as the bottom is rock, I find a beach on the Northern side of the island and anchor up between rocks but have enough room to swing should the wind kick in.
We read up on the cave paintings and find that we are in the right spot, off to the beach to start searching and there is a fairly good leed at the back of the beach. We stumble around like 2 old cows on the piss, Tess reckons the trail is up some precipice that would take us to Tasmania, the boy scout comes out in me and the trail is found, like good trekkers we don’t have any water or fuck all to keep us hydrated in the heat, we moo on for a while and then Tess walks into the cavern of the paintings. We are wrapped and crack off the cameras at an alarming rate, we discuss what the Abos’life was like and head back towards the boat, then out of the corner of my eye another trail appears so we trample the bush to death on towards the next cavern. Tess beats me again and like a good moo gives me a holler that she’s arrived. These paintings are better than the first lot so we put on our acting suits and video the lot.
On the way back to the boat I take a short long cut and run second again, drat..... we decide to move around to the south side of the island for tonight as the rocks beside the boat have grown teeth and are looking hungry. We anchor up off another beach in 40ft of water.
Day 16
After a blissful nights snoring and bottom burping chatter is heard outside, Tess investigates and it’s a boatload of people heading to the shore, no doubt they know something we don’t, so we keep tabs on them while we get the dingy ready for a hot pursuit to the beach. When we pull up at the beach there’s more footprints than a good day at Bondi.....So at least we won’t have our cow skins on today, a blind man riding an emu could follow these ruts..
The mob in front of us are at the caves, so halfway up what seems like the side of Mount Everest, we pull up on a rock and wait till the mob descends down past us. We want the place to ourselves as we still have our acting suits on and we don’t wish to embarrass anyone especially ourselves....the place is fascinating the entire floor is a midden with thousands of hermit crab shells strewn about, the paintings are very clear and tell a story, the caves have internal tunnels that a normal person could crawl through, us 2 moos would get stuck so we can that idea.
Lucky we have 2 cameras with us I start to take video’s and Tess attacks the other camera only to find that the batteries are still in the charger on the boat.... after we have documented and bullshitted our way round the caves we descend and find a side track, I sent Tess to scout the trail while I rest on a nice rock, she discovers more caves with clearer paintings and the camera is flashing like a strobe light in a disco.
While all of this is going on I start to descend the mountain, I didn’t get far when Tess the trail blazer yells out to find her way back to the trail...she’s lost... only for a little while....alas she catches up with me when I’m at the bottom of the hill, back to the beach we go and the water is crystal clear so we go for a short swim.
Later in the day a couple of blokes come past us trolling and bugger me he hooks up just near us, when he lands the fish it’s a Spanish Mackeral, so once they leave, I rest for awhile before releasing the dingy to take me to the fishing ground, I sort off went towards the blokes boat who caught the fish and they cooeed me over for a chat, when I left them I had a nice fillet of Spanish Mackeral sitting next to me.... good blokes these one’s..
Tess cooked up battered fresh fish for dinner with chips made by me, another great day....

Day 17
We know there’s a strong wind warning coming for Thursday which is tomorrow; we decide to go over to the wreckage of a DC3 which crashed in WW2. This is about 8 miles from our last anchorage, If the wind kicks in early it won’t matter as the next destination Freshwater Bay is North West and the wind will be directly behind us. In these parts we are going to, the area is not surveyed for the last 2 miles, this is a pain as you have to keep a lookout for sneaky rocks but mostly they are close to shore, we manage to get within a 100 metres of the beach where this plane is before dropping anchor.
After a pleasant stroll over a sandhill and across a salt pan we find the wreckage, it is in great nick and the damage is relatively not too bad, the fuselage is in 1 piece and 1 wing is broken off, it looks as though the crew would have walked away with a few scratches, there are bullet holes through the plane maybe this is what brought it down. We will try to find out what did happen, me speculating would only come up with a tale that would be somewhat fictional, I mean I reckon (here we go)... it was a pleasant day when the chaps from “Black Dog Pigs Nuts Squadron” were on a routine flight from Darwin, when on the approach to Truscott Airfield, which is only 2 miles from the crash site, spotted some activity in the salt pan and went to investigate, bugger me, dropped on the salt pan was 40 pallets of grog, the crew got so excited they forgot who was driving the DC3, crashed the mother right next to the grog, as they didn’t put out a Mayday call they were stuck for 2 weeks with only grog to survive on...... Sounds feasible... NOT...
It was very uncomfortable where we were anchored so we took off for Freshwater Bay we arrived at 5 pm and were greeted by a 6 ft shark... nice one...
Day 18
Freshwater bay is a lovely spot and we have some neighbours , the tide is needed to get to the freshwater stream 200 metres from the boat, we venture over with some of our washing as we don’t know what we will find. We dingy through the mangroves and the bottom of the stream comes into view, what a pleasant surprise we find this wide open space with water gently cascading down with many pools that you can swim in, this is defiantly good shit, Tess takes off up to a pond and washes her hair then does some washing.
I’m havachatting with the neighbours and this is really a place to be enjoyed, I take over the washing duties which is hard to take as you have to sit in the cool water while turning our portable washing contraption, boy we have it tough.... we stay for a couple of hours swimming and socialising, tomorrow we will be back to do more washing and fill our water tanks to the brim, we went looking for some ‘Kimberly Oysters’ in the afternoon and found some, we had to leave the oystering until tomorrow as the sandflies tried to carry us away, we did try them and they are huge and delicious, look out sandflies tomorrow we bring the bushmans spray.....another day in paradise.
Day 19
Up reasonably early for the oyster hunt, Tess has reneged on the hunt and I am on my own, I go to a small beach close by and gather a few nice oysters, I take them back to the boat then decide to venture further afield which brings me to a rocky cove a mile from the boat. I’m in heaven, oysters everywhere and untouched, I only take a dozen or so as these oysters are huge.
I pickup a rock which has the biggest oyster I have ever seen and take it back to the boat, this oyster has to be videoed and photographed as no one would believe me that it is so big. Tess batters the oysters for an entrée and they are delicious.
Day 20
We decide to fill the boat with water and finish the washing, after a few trips back and forth the job is done. It was made easy getting the water, I took a hose over to the stream and set it in place so that I could fill the containers in the dingy at the bottom of the stream , once they were filled I just left the hose where it was until I returned in the dingy.
We were on Nightmoves when a Pan Pan call came through on the radio, these are high distress calls and I answered. A boat called Advanti 2 had run aground at middle rock some 10 miles away from where we were, I spoke to the bloke and he sounded confused to say the least, I asked him to put out a kedge anchor, which means you jump in your dingy lower your anchor into the dingy and take it towards the wind or tide whichever is greater, that will hold you fast and stop you going further aground.
This bloke had no fucking idea what I was talking about, I thought he had gone to put the kedge anchor out as the radio was silent for 20 minutes. This bloke calls me up again and I ask him how the kedge anchor went and he told me the anchor was too heavy..... and was I on my way to help him.... for fuck sake this bloke couldn‘t save a toy duck in a bathtub let alone his boat... so I told him it would take me over an hour to get there. Tess and I packed up Nightmoves and headed off at three quarter speed into a 15 knot wind, we were copping a fair flogging but Nightmoves was up to the job.
We were about 30 minutes from getting to this bloke when he gets me on the radio and tells me he’s got off the reef..... I was pissed off but still glad that he was all right, he offered me compensation for wasting my time but helping other boaties comes without question or expectation of compensation, Out of the blue this bloke asked me would it be ok to pull up to a beach and see if and how much damage had been done to his boat..... I asked him if he intended to jump into the water or not and he said yes.... Fairdinkum this place is full of crocs and this bloke wants to jump overboard, i said “Mate if your boats not leaking and everything is functioning DON”T” again some mothers do have em.
Day 21
We’re off to Parry Harbour for a bit of a look see, when we get around there we decide to keep going to Osbourne Island, the tide is with us and we can come back to the harbour later in the week. Again we are in uncharted waters around the Osbourne Islands, there are Pearl Farms to contend with as well, we find a nice anchorage in Cyclone Cove aptly named as the Pearl Farmers have moorings in here for use during cyclones to protect their work boats.
We get a visit from one of the Pearl Farmers bosses, he is a very good bloke, after a while he offers to take me to a landing place where we can walk from to find some extensive caves. All yachties get checked out especially as it’s harvest time for the pearls, he tells us that the cost of the whole operation is covered by the sale of the used shells ($60) the clam meat ($125.00 kilo) the sale of the pearls is profit. At an average 6 Grand per pearl that’s big bucks.
We go in search of the caves and take some trail marking strips of material with us, this makes it easier for everyone to find the way and for us to get back. We find the caves and they are massive, we have torches to explore the darker tunnels which run for 50 metres or so. This area which is called the “Block of Flats” was inhabited and by the amount of middens, they had a good life here. The protection of the caves plus the close proximity of water and abundant sea food would have made life just that much easier for the indigenous.
Totally satisfied with our discovery we went back to the boat for a rest.
Day 22
Today we are going to find the 3 Arches which we’ve been given the general direction of, there is supposed to be a fresh water stream near the Arches as well so we look for that first. No luck and the country has that “you will die here feel “so we bolt out of there, we soon find the Arches as they can be seen from the dingy as we approach the beach, once on shore this place is ancient, you can feel the ruggedness of the land through your body, I spot a shell on the beach and it’s a bailing shell medium size, Tess finds another 2 and they are all in perfect condition.
The arches themselves are impossible only mother earth can make these stand, the length of one of the arches is 40 metres resting on a pedestal half a metre in diameter. You have to be here to take in the enormity of the arches. Tess wanders out in the bush and finds a amphitheatre, she defiantly doesn’t sound like Joan Sutherland but she has a go..... There’s a bank of shells some 4 metres deep covering 400 square metres, countless shells dating back millions of years, it makes you wonder how long ago the first shell landed here.
Day 23
We make tracks for the Mitchell River and were hoping for a good breeze but that drops out, we end up motoring to the entrance of the river where we drop anchor. You have to enter this river on a fairly high tide, it dries out just inside the entrance for a mile and a half at low tide. We end up with a visitor coming to the boat, a little croc... this croc hangs around for quite awhile maybe hoping for a free feed.
Day 24
Up early to take the tide into the river, we end up in Surveyors Creek which is a narrow but reasonably deep. On the way we meet up with another croc just cruising along oblivious to us, I pass the croc which is 10 feet from the boat, we anchor up and this croc just cruises around. This place is very tranquil hardly a ripple on the water and the birds are singing their tunes, I took the dingy up to the waterfall which was not all that impressive, the tide was low and even though the water was running good, the quality was nowhere near Freshwater Bay falls.
After I got back from the falls (Tess is pensive about going in the dingy with crocs around) we relaxed for the afternoon and just watched all the goings on with the wildlife, just after dusk Tess let the water out of the sink which splashed into the water, this was like a go sign for the local crocs, crikey this one croc slid down the bank some 50 metres away and made way to the boat in quick time...(Tess’s comment THAT’S WHY I DON’T GO IN THE DINGY WHEN I CAN SEE THE CROCS......)
We tipped some more water over the back of the boat and this croc moved closer to see if a free feed was on offer, a few fish made a scurry near the shore and the croc lost interest in us and went searching for them. Just goes to show what attracts these fellows. We sleep outside on the deck and to our surprise no mozzies.
Day 25
We left Surveyors Creek and anchored just outside the creek entry in the Mitchell River, this was a necessity as the low tide today would see us on the bottom if we stayed in the creek. A large boat was down the river, at high tide the tender (26ft. 100k.) from that boat made its way up to us, they asked if we had seen any helicopters flying around as they were to pick up passengers from the top of Surveyors Creek. We told them that we hadn’t and the creek entry was just behind them, they went up the creek and a few minutes later a chopper flew over.
The mob in the tender then came back to us and we told them the chopper flew over then they took off again , the chopper came looking for them, finally they seen each other and the passengers were picked up. On the way out of the river the skipper of the tender made a blunder and ran into submerged rocks, I thought they had stuffed both drive shafts but lucky for them they got away with a bruised ego and minimal damage.
We had to have a rest after that..... later on I decided to have a fish and tried out a fancy lure that we bought in Darwin, that was short lived the lure found a new home on a rock and it was bye bye 15 bucks.... so back to the old faithfull spoon lure, after a few outstanding casts I watched as the spoon disappeared over the mangroves....seems as though the thing was not connected to the line properly, I downed tools cursed then decided to use a hand line instead.
Before I rigged up with the hand line Tess spotted a croc on a sandbank 200 metres away, this was time to bring out the Irwin in me, no way Tess was coming, I armed myself to the teeth with my video cameras and half a fishing knife.... let the adventure begin. I reckon this croc was around the 3 metres, enough to chew a limb or two off. I went up river from this bloke as his escape path off the sand bank was downstream and you don’t want to be in his path, once these blokes head down thier escape path if your in the way you get snotted.
Coming downstream the croc got nervous and started to bolt I have all this on video and I got close very close, it was a buzz and the adrenalin was flowing like a flooded river...after that it was time to try the fishing thing again. This time with the trusty hand line I soon got results, although not the ones I really wanted, whatever it was in the water was smashing the gear and even eating the sinkers... so I tried a new rig which was unorthodox to say the least but it worked, dinner tonight will be Yellow Spotted Rock Cod which is a native Kimberly fish which is a 4 out of 5 star table fish as well.
It had been a big day and we both crashed out ....
Day 26
Time to leave and head back towards Truscott, we will have to be there in 5 days to pick up Harding for a 2 week holiday. We had a rough day of it the wind was totally erratic, had to drop the sails and motor into short steep wind waves yuk. Anchored in Parry Harbour for the night some 50 miles from the Mitchell River.
Day 27
Another crappy day for sailing so we motor to Freshwater Bay, Met up with Tryphena and Nakara and had afternoon talkies and cups of tea.
Day 28
Tryphena and Nakara left for other destinations and we are on our lonesome , it’s time to fill the water tank and get the washing done, the creek is still running well so we start the shuffle between the creek and the boat. After taking on a few loads of water we have to go and do the washing before the tide drops too low to get to the creek, we spend 5 hours on domestic duties and that’s enough for the day. 2 more boats pull in and anchor for the night, one is called Reality and Dog on Cat.
Day 28
We spend the day relaxing and discovering a bit more of the creek further upstream, we found a very nice water hole which we swim in and give the hair a shampoo and condition. We ran into the crew of Reality and exchanged the usual banter then Tess drops a bombshell and asks if they are off the “SMALL” yacht that came in last night.... Boaties unwritten law states that you never call another boaties boat “SMALL’, you may as well tell them that their kangaroo couldn’t root a possum....
The conversation slowly fell into the dunny so we ventured back to the boat where I told Tess about the unwritten law, we met the crew off Dog on Cat, Rod and Barb, they have been cruising the Kimberly’s for 10 years. We told them we were off to the Drysdale River to see Don Macloud, they have known Don for many years and Ron had discovered a very rare painting in the Drysdale River.
We made plans to leave tomorrow for Truscott to pick up my son Harding.
Day 29
Were off and again there is no wind so it was motors on all the way, we get to Truscott and it’s rough with the wind blowing on shore, we anchor up and finally the weather settles and we have a good night.
Day 30
The boy arrives and the weather is perfect, my mate Peter from Darwin had organised a 200 litre drum of diesel to be left at Truscott for me, so we decanter the fuel into the boat and we’re off. Harding can’t believe the remoteness and the vast stretched out coastline and no people, we make our way over to Honeymoon Bay to have a swim and sort out a lift into Kalumbaru to the mission for tucker as we are running low, this will also give Harding a chance to see how the Abos live.
We went to shore and ran into a fellow in a tin shack his name was Bob and after a short conversation we had our lift organised in 2 days time. We went over to the mouth of the Drysdale River to wait for the tide tomorrow then we will go up to Don Macloud’s for a few days.
Day 31
While we wait for the tide we go to shore where there are sand dunes, the dunes are untouched and there is not 1 footprint anywhere, Harding takes off all over the dunes like a mad thing, a few nice shells are found, time to take off up the river and all goes well, there is plenty of water and we arrive early afternoon, this river is magnificent there are fish galore and crocs as well, we take a mooring that Don has put down and head over to his camp for a cup of tea and a yarn.
Day 32
You cannot describe this place as there is too much to see and do, we swim in the rapids at the end of the salt water, fish just using hooks with no bait and get results, Don takes us on a journey to the rare painting, Bowerbird Nest and fishing.
Harding and I go fishing later in the day and on the way back a croc has appeared out the back of Nightmoves, Tess cooees us and we get very close to this croc, once it goes under the water we leave quickly as this is the crocs domain.

written by  Nightmoves on August 1, 2010 from Darwin, Australia
from the travel blog: Robbie and Tess around Australia
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Day 5
We were going to Entrance Island but changed our destination to Junction Bay, it was a quiet day no wind no fish.
Day 6
It’s decided we need a rest especially as a barge going by tells us that the weather is going to turn to shit , we pull into the King River and this place is magic, no bar to cross and the entrance is over a mile wide, the water is deep and there is heaps of wild life, we settle in for a good nights sleep and look forward to adventures tomorrow.
Day 7
The dawn brings a glass out and the ripples of a swimming croc can be seen near the shore, a small shark glides by oblivious to us, there are millions of red bugs over the boat thank fully they don’t bite and when the wind comes up they disappear. As the tide goes down a croc is spotted having a snooze on a bank nearby, we got the troops on board and went over to take a closer look, I put the boat as close as possible and everyone got a good eye full of this fellow, it was time for a voyage of discovery so we headed up the river for a few miles trolling as we went. On the way back a nice Golden Travally took the lure and was duly hauled in, a short time later we had another hit and my $500 rod and reel disappeared off the boat.... I worked out that one of the guys had reset the rod without resetting the drag, so when the fish hit the lure the rod took all the strain and pulled the rod holder off the boat....Bugger.
Later that day a couple of fishing boats roared in and pulled up next to us, the first boat had 2 coppers aboard and the other an elder from Goulbourn Island with 2 land councillors. Apparently we were in a traditional land holders river and that we could not go ashore or go fishing, crikey what’s this country to coming to no black fella is going to tell me where the f*^%$#@ I can go, these bludgers don’t work and they think getting the dole is their birthright.
In the end after the elder was plied with grog we were his best mate and were invited to Goulbourn Island for a visit.
Day 8
Off to Goulbourn Island and 3 hours later we arrive, I rang the coppers to let them know we were at anchor, they came over to where we were and invited us over to shore so we could go into the community. The pickup vehicles were a four wheel drive and a paddy wagon, Tess and I took the paddy wagon along with Greg and Bell, it brought back sweet memories of my misspent youth.....
What a great experience this was, this Community is totally grog free and the locals were a friendly bunch. The coppers were great and showed us around the place, we went shopping and the tucker was very reasonably priced and fresh.
Once back to the anchorage we invited the coppers over for dinner and a few grogs but they had to decline as they were doing stuff for the locals that night, a bloke working for the community pulled up in his boat and gave us heaps of fish so we plied him and his offsiders with grog and as cracker night was had by all.
Day 9
The head is rather sore this morning and Tess’s bucket is looking good, of course Tess is happy the captain is crook but I manage to survive the day... We anchor at some bay somewhere miles from where we were, thank the grog god for my survival....
Day 10
Up with the sparrows and we are getting closer to Darwin, we are going through Bowen Strait today heading for Port Essington, I take a few short cuts off the beaten track and by the end of the day save 6 miles. The blokes who write the guide books through these areas must wear skirts... all through my short cuts I had no less than 12 feet under the boat at low tide, we take an anchorage at Black Rock at the entrance to Port Essington, these rocks are aptly named as they are darker than a cows guts..
We went for a tiki tour in the dingy and found a wharf around the corner but it was too rough to go further.
Day 11
We wake up to a rolling sea and the other boats are rocking like a honeymooners bed, Greg from Golden Legend gets us on the radio and reckons if he doesn’t move soon he’s going to spew so we take off to Kennedy Bay down into the Port some 6 miles, once there it’s as smooth as the moths in my wallet...
We anchor up and a customs helicopter is in the distance and soon hovers above, we go thru the routine and off they go. We venture to the shore and Tess finds some big shells , there is crap all over the place that has been washed ashore in cyclones, just goes to show what grubby boaties toss overboard.
We decide to stay for another day and have a cook up of the fish we got given at Goulbourn Island, a great evening is had by all.
Day 12
Today we venture off to the ruins of The Victoria Settlement which was built from 1838 until 1849 when it was abandoned, the settlement is at Minto Head some 12miles into Port Essington and in need of some TLC. it is heritage listed which may be it’s saviour. I rode my trusty rusty bike to the ruins as the walk was 3.5 Klms and the track good enough for bike riding, it was a fascinating place and it makes you realise how tough the people were in those bygone days.
Day 13
A short trip to Cape Don, an early night as tomorrow we are trekking to Darwin 100miles away.
Day 14
Up at 4.30am for an early departure, the tide today should give us a few knots more speed which will shorten our trip considerably, Tess hits the wall in the first 5 miles it’s pitch black and a bit rough she finally surfaces some hours later looking a bit worse for wear but not too bad.
We stop at Howick Island for an hour waiting for the tide to change and have a quick snooze, underway again and it is a hot 32 degrees on the deck, the tide helps us along and we are sitting on 10.5knots for a couple of hours. Darwin comes into sight and we anchor up in Fanny Bay after 14 hours of travel, we averaged 7 knots for the trip which is great, Cognac comes in an hour later and the Golden Legend an hour after that. It is great to be here, tomorrow we are going to the Bayveiw Marina for a week to restock and rest.
Cheers R&T.

written by  Nightmoves on June 20, 2010 from Darwin, Australia
from the travel blog: Robbie and Tess around Australia
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