We had been planning a trip up to the Black Point camping ground on Coburg Peninsula for a few months and as usual Jessie organised permits and got information etc.
We took our Nissan Patrol and our "Blue Submarine" boat. Graham and Paul had a big day before the trip putting a new floor in the boat after Paul had got extra aluminium struts built in - it was built like a tank.
There was quite a convoy of vehicles and boats and trailers that made the trip. David brought his white landcruiser ute with the "shark" dinghy on the roof. Norma brought the green Nissan (Baggsy drove), Matty Hill took his SWB Patrol, Graham, Justin and Talea went with Geoff Beckett (Geoff had an 80 series and a boat), Robby and Jessie took their 80 series "Can do" truck with the boat Rob shared with Colin on the back.
The trip out was pretty adventurous to say the least! Broken boat trailers and a box trailer rollover! With some ingenious patching, including a tied on log to drag the box trailer on, we eventually made it to the campsite in the night. Some parts had to be flown into the nearby ranger station to fix the trailers!
Exact dates are a bit hazy now - but the first photo Paul has is the big mackerel Rosanna caught on a little k-mart rod and reel - and this was taken on the 25th of September 1999. This Saturday might have been the day after arriving or perhaps we needed a day to recover from the trip in and setup camp etc.
Rosanna's mackerel fed the whole camp that night - and Paul, not normally known for his cooking prowess, received raving critique of his battered fish cakes.
We didn't catch a heap of fish on the trip but it was good to see some new country. Painted Crayfish were a popular target and the team did pretty well at getting a few of them. There was one fright one night however when a few went out on the boat at night after crays and bumped into a reef - fortunately no serious damage was done.
On the Wednesday a couple of boats went to the Victoria Settlement as planned which was really interesting. Was quite a ways up one of the big inlets in Coburg but it was lovely scenery and beautiful sheltered green waters.
Was a bit tricky with the tide when we went to leave the old settlement as the tide had come in which meant a little swim out to the boat in crocodile infested waters!
It was a good trip in all and although challenging it was worth doing. The campsite was quite nice and shady although in September it was very hot out of the shade.
Fortunately the car trip home was pretty uneventful. We travelled home on Wednesday the 29th of September, 1999.
Paul started work at Batchelor Institute this month in 2000. He initially applied for two positions, and A03 Desktop Support Officer and an A05 Network Administrator. When at the Network Administrator interview he discovered that they used Novell Netware that he had no experience in he pretty much talked them out of it and took the more junior position. But soon after starting he was doing the Network Admin role anyways albeit at the lower salary! He found the different system wasn't that different than those he was used to.
