Kakadu... The beer wrangler

Well as it could be expected on a long weekend, I found myself busy packing the car and boat on a quest for another alcoholic raged fishing and camping spectacular. Two weeks ago I was approached by a lady from work, with the notion to take myself and another work affiliate out fishing in the world famous Kakadu National Park. I was keen as mustard with the invitation and accepted immediately. Kakadu if you’re wondering is exactly the same place where Crocodile Dundee was filmed. If you can remember the scene where he stands on a rock and proclaims “This is my backyard”, yeah that’s the joint!. On top of this, it was also the home of one of my favourite autobiographies, Hell west and crooked – written by Tom Cole. So to see this landscape in person, and even live in its harsh unforgiving environment for just a moment was like a dream come true.

I guess most people would be happier sipping fruity cocktails in a high end resort by the sea shore, while being waited on by a hot French south pacific islander, then battling it out with nature in this Jurassic park. So do I, but hey who doesn’t like getting feral either? Just picture billabongs full of prehistoric animals which hate you, wild horses and buffalo graze lazily over the grassy flood plains and a profusion of colourful birds shelter under the shrubs in the in the scorching heat of the day. I can’t even begin to explain what it feels like to be engulfed in these elements, an untouched ecosystem adapted over many years to form a natural equilibrium.

So the fishing trip was on, the boat was packed and we made the relatively short 3.5 hour drive out to Yellow waters. We set up camp, and quickly set about making our way onto to the water for the first fish for the weekend. I won’t bore you with fishing jargon and the minor details of the trip, but we did well and it was ascertained early that Barramundi and beer was on the menu. My new found friends, as I would quickly learn were avid drinkers. A great characteristic for camping trips! A final count after that first night was 17 beers on my tally, funnily enough a tempo which wouldn’t ease up until we had basically raped a pillaged all that remained in the two huge eskies. As you can guess it was a pretty good weekend had by all.

Although I was having a great time, I couldn’t help feeling a slight bit of disappointment. Not with the weekend itself, but more the fact my good friends who I usually road trip with weren’t here to enjoy it. For a while now I’ve been promising that I’ll be home soon. But reality is that I’m not really sure where home is anymore, and by the looks of my housing situation I could still be up here for close to two more months. So to those guys who read my blog… Sorry.

But what this got me thinking about more is the “Alby Mangles Gun Safari” Zac and I have been jabbering on about for some time. Most of the readers are probably not aware that I’m planning to travel around Australia with a good friend called Zac. This Monkey boy (who has been a large part of my previous adventure blogs), and myself have planned to setup a Van with a boat and drive up the west coast and eventually all the way back around to Tasmania starting around October this year. The idea being that we will live off the land as much as possible to save money by eating things like fish, goats, camels, ducks, snakes, lizards, Chinese etc. It probably sounds pretty sketchy, but that’s the challenge which has been set.

My first baby barrra... Note; 24 beer caps on the hat before my first fish!