Our First Aussie Catch

We are loving the weather here in the Torres Straights. It is very similar to Florida, with high temperatures and high humidity. The water is nice and warm and the sun is nice and bright! Monday May 20th we went for a fish from land on Thursday Island. Dave caught his first few fish, 2 of a species that we don't know, and 2 coral trout (pictured). They were all pretty small, but were just fine as a start to his Australian fishing. Jill sat out on the jetty rocks as Dave fished, keeping an eye out for crocodiles. Thankfully none were in the area, so we didn't have any worries.
On Wednesday we went out fishing on Jason's boat. We started off popping on top water, which means you are casting a wooden bait and quickly reeling it in to make it pop/jump across the top of the water, like a bait fish would look if he were swimming. Amazingly Dave hooked up a GT (Giant Trevally) on his third pop of his first cast. Considering this is the species we were targeting, and it was Dave's first time trying for this fish, it was really impressive to catch one so quickly. After popping for awhile, we went out to a bouy to jig for GT. This is dropping a lead/metal bait to the bottom and reeling it up at a quick pace with stop and go action. Jill caught her first fish in Australia jigging from the bottom up and hooked a Golden Trevally. It was a nice size and an accomplishment for her. Dave caught a few more fish for the day, and Jason caught a few as well. These were all released back into the water. We are very pleased with the start to our Australian fishing!!

We made it to Australia!

Sunday was a long day of traveling, but well worth the journey. We woke at 4:00am in our hotel to get going to the airport. Our 6 hour flight left New Zealand at 7:00am. We collected our luggage in Cairns, went through customs, checked in with the domestic terminal, and boarded our 2nd fight. We flew a short 1 1/2 hours to Horn Island, just north of Australia's mainland. We then took a bus from the airport to the harbor, where we got onto a ferry. We took the ferry along with our 5 suitcases, rod case, and backpacks to Thursday Island where our friend Jason Kidd picked us up. It was great to see Jason after a year apart. We met him originally in New Zealand, but he moved away to Australia in early 2012. We settled into his apartment where he lives with his girlfriend Vee, and had a nice bar-b-que dinner. We went up to a hilltop on the island to watch our first Australian sunset. It was a beautiful night after a long 18 hour day.

Great Fly Fishing

 On Friday Dave went out fly fishing with Jason from Trout Beck Fishing Lodge in the Whanganui River. They had a successful day fishing together in the chilly weather. Dave got 3 fish and Jason got 5. All 8 fish were between 6 and 9 pounds, which is an awesome catch in the river. After a nice day on the river, they headed home, and quickly found themselves pulled over with a flat tire. Seems like a simple problem, but.... not only did it start raining on them, they couldn't seem to get the tire off. From being on the truck so long the tire had seized itself on. After putting in lots of effort, they unloaded the 4-wheeler and drove down the road to get a post from a nearby farm. They were able to beat the tire off the rim with the force of the post and complete the change in the cold wind and rain. Jill stayed back at the lodge to relax and prepare for the next leg of the journey. Saturday Dave tried a bit of fly fishing, but the torrential rain from Friday night made the river and lake stirred up and murky. So, we packed up the car and headed to Auckland to check into a hotel near the airport. Our flight leaves tomorrow morning at 7am, so we will be up bright and early to get to the airport at 5. Tomorrow will be a long day of traveling with 2 flights and a ferry ride to our destination. We are stoked!!! We'll check in from Australia next.

Our 100th Post!

It's been a couple weeks since the last post, and it's also been our last couple weeks in New Zealand. Dave had a few more days of fishing on Back in Black and Jill ran the mother's day 8k with her friend Laine. We packed everything up and left the Bay of Islands on Tuesday May 14th. We drove down to Mount Monganui, southeast of Auckland, and stayed wih our friend Andre. We went out fishing on his boat on Wednesday. The first half of the day we were targeting swordfish, but had no luck, and the second half of the day we went for Bluenose. It was a fun day out even though we only got 1 Bluenose (which we ate for dinner), and 1 Rays Bream (which we threw back). On Thursday we drove down to Turangi to Trout Beck Fishing Lodge to see Tracy and Jason. We will spend 2 nights here, then 1 night in Auckland before we fly out Sunday morning to Australia. Our 3 months here have flown by. We are excited to get to Australia and experience a new place and see new things!

King of The Coast Competition

Friday April 26th Dave set up camp with Marty at North Cape for the King of The Coast Fishing Competition, which was a fundraiser for one of the local schools. They land-based fished Saturday and Sunday mostly for snapper, but also a bit for kingfish. The weigh-in was Sunday afternoon in Whangaroa Harbour. After driving north, taking the dingy an hour and a half to the North Cape, then hiking for a couple hours to their spot, then all back again, they were pretty worn out. Jill met them just after weigh in, and they didn't seem overly positive. They had a great time, but they didn't think they had caught a big enough fish. There was an auction of everyone's donated fish to the public for the benefit of the school. Then it was awards time. Lots of raffle prizes were given out to all the participants, then prizes were given to different fishing category winners. Marty won the biggest snapper and Dave won average snapper, which meant they each received $1000.00. WOW!!! Those were the only 2 cash prizes, and our guys won them both. What a great weekend fishing, and a well deserved prize after all their hard work and effort.

Cape Reinga

April 20th was Dave's birthday so we had a cookout party at our friends house. We had a really great time and enjoyed being with friends. After a couple day's recuperation from Dave's Birthday celebrations, we decided to go see Cape Reinga on April 23rd. We drove up north, which takes about 3 hours and made only a couple pit stops. The first was to see the remnants of the Kauri gum diggers. It was  a quick stop, but it gave us a chance to stretch our legs and learn a little history too. Basically the gum (sap) was collected and used for varnishes and had great value, so it was extracted from the ground. We enjoyed our drive north in the nice sunny weather, and stopped to see 90 mile beach on the west coast. It's a beautiful wide flat beach that permits road traffic. Back on the road, we continued on to Cape Reinga. While most people think it is the most northern point in New Zealand, it actually is not. North Cape, just slightly farther north but not accessible by the public, is the true most northern point. However Cape Reinga fills in as the most northern point since it is a welcoming spot for visitors. The lighthouse and coast are certainly amazing, but the real beauty lies within the beliefs around the cape. The Maori believe the spirits of the dead travel to the cape on their journey to the afterlife. There is an 800 year old tree clinging to the side of a rocky peak whose roots are used as stairs by the spirits to descend into the water and continue on to the underworld. It was a beautiful place and a joy to visit. The park and grounds are all kept very nice and there is plenty of information and history.

Tutukaka Coast

On Wednesday April 17th, we went down to the Tutukaka coast to explore. This is a pristine area on the east coast, about an hour and a half south of us. We first went on the Whangamumu Bay - Ngunguru Estuary Walkway. The only problem was, I don't think we ever actually found the walkway. The description online stated you should go around low tide as it is a coastal walk and some areas are only accessible at low tide. Well we went close to low tide and looked in many areas for the start of the track. We eventually just followed the rocks around the beach and had a really enjoyable hour climbing from one rocky outcrop to the next. We don't know what the right way was, but we liked our way. After our rocky adventure we continued on the road to the Tutukaka Headland Lighthouse Walkway. This spot was so amazingly beautiful. The water was gorgeous, the land was amazing, there was no one around, and it was a challenge to get to. We had to walk down a steep set of 180 steps to cross over a rocky spot connecting the mainland to a little (but very tall) island where the lighthouse and lookout were. It was a steep climb up the island trail, but once we were to the top it was worth it. It was such a nice lookout over the Pacific ocean and the Tutukaka Coast. The lighthouse at the top was small, but served an important purpose. It was all run on solar energy which is great to see. We sat and enjoyed for awhile before heading back down. We weren't in a rush knowing we had to hike back up all those steps and a hill on the other side. We made it back to the car and hit the road. We drove up the coast and stopped at a great surf spot, Woolleys Bay, and watched the action for a few minutes. The waves were big and clean and the surfers were certainly enjoying themselves. Tutukaka Coast was a great day and one of the more peaceful, desolate day trips we've gone on.