There has been so much to cram into my time here that there has been hardly any time at all for socialising other than at evening meal times and then its off to bed to rest up for the next day!this weekend however I did find the time to visit a local wildlife sanctuary which is little more than another clearing in the bush really, but it does house one or two of the animals that I was never going to be able to see in the wild, Koala Bears for example are now so confined to just a few small areas that it would have taken half of the time to just find them!
Yesterday(Sunday)Steve invited me to go along as his guest to a wine tasting at one of the splendid restaurants overlooking the bar, if you can think of a better way to enjoy the final few days of an epic adventure then do let me know!the restaurant is owned and run by Anthony& Sally Daly and has the most fantastic panoramic views imaginable, to compliment the wines we were treated to no less than four different local oyster variations from different locations and the subtleties in taste were amazing(I can see Geoffrey's mouth watering already!)underneath the restaurant there is a marine aquarium with all sorts of local fish and shellfish on display

Hoping to get up into the mountains for a go at the wild trout but with just over a week to go its cutting things a bit tight, we will see!

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Ken (Bumpy)Lakeman slipped away gently with Ella Fitzgerald playing quietly in the background,there will be a last post salute this Friday at the Returned Serviceman's League club in Merimbula, N.S.W. "OLD SOLDIERS NEVER DIE"

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Well what a week that was! the Great Barrier Reef is without doubt one of the great wonders of the world,but how do you get the very best out of it? in my humble opinion its to steal the Beckhams gin palace, hire an all girl crew and navigate well away from all the other boats, filled to the bilges with Moet and Caviar you could be forgiven for occasionally peeping over the side and winking at the odd octopus or turtle!
The reality is somewhat different however, you get on a big fast reef cat, head out at 40 knots and get ushered along with 300 others into various activities including, diving, snorkeling,Helli flights and then submersible cruises! you go at 9 and come back at 4 and you will have "done" the reef, you get a good lunch and all for about $450(£250) which is great!
The other three days in Port Douglas where bliss, I had one day fishing the reef and met a real boat full of characters(the photos speak for themselves) we caught lots of reef fish and I lost a big Spanish Mackerel.
The following day I chartered a local guide called Jamie Beitzel who took me out wrecking off the mouth of the Daintree River, real jungle this!Jamie lives with his wife and young family in the jungle over the Daintree ferry, no electricity and very little else but the feeling I got was that here was a very contented young man doing what he loved!he put me on to some amazing fish including Nannigai and Cobia and boy did they fight especially in the 30 degree heat!again the photos speak for themselves,the fish I caught went to feed some of Jamies Aboriginal friends in the jungle where he lives!The Daintree is full of Crocs so take care with the bathing!

Flying back from Cairns probably afforded the best view of the reef yet, vivid colours showing the real extent of the place all 800 miles of it!sadly the plane was full, i didn't have a window seat and we couldn't move around because of turbulence, so photos were not an option, still we had the helicopter shots to fall back on, I forgot to take my fishing hat off and stow it in my luggage so I ended up having it confiscated for trying to carry an illegal weapon on board at Sydney!

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I took Mike out for a mornings creek fishing with one of the best Estuary guides in N.S.W. Stuart Hindson who counts among his friends two of the best known Aussie anglers ,Steve (starlo) Starling and "Bushy" from the Rex Hunt discovery channel series, Stuart knows these estuary waters like the back of his hand and although the fish were not particularly cooperative on this occasion (we caught about half a dozen small Tailor) he re- kindled the art of fishing "poppers", we had a great morning! the following day I went out for a trip off Haycock point and no sooner had we got to the mark,than we were ingulfed in a sea mist! quite scary when you are in strange waters! as the mist burned off the wind and swell increased alarmingly and we made a dash for shelter, as we did so the sea became alive with Whales! mothers and calves tail crashing and getting up to all sorts of antics seemingly they get all pumped up when the sea turns nasty,probably because of increased surface oxygen levels? this just had to be photographed the problem was "how" with the boat bobbing around like a cork! the answer was simple, there was a big guy on board from Adelaide who hung on the deck transom and then got me in a sort of Bear hug so I had both hands free, the result was the next series of shots! plus a bag of reef fish we caught!
I had booked to go out on one of the first Tuna trips from Eden today but the weather was getting steadily worse, so when the skipper rang at six this mornig and said the trip was off because the sea looked like "the perfect storm" I was quietly relieved!
Im flying up to Queensland on Sunday for five days to see the reef and do a bit of fishing so the next time I blog we may be talking "crocs"

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Merimbula has a natural harbour leading up into a series of large ,shallow saltwater lakes, large scale Oyster farming is carried out here( and I must say they are they are the best that I have tasted!) The mouth of the harbour is little more than a moving sand bank really and is known as "the Bar", only shallow drafted boats can navigate the bar because the exit channel is only a matter of feet wide and is compounded by strong currents and at times big surf rollers coming in off the Tasman sea, here are some photos that I took this week of boats crossing the bar(and in one case almost coming to disaster!, look for the two people in yellow life jackets!) and an archive shot of a boat that didn't make it!
One of the charter skippers has sort of adopted me as his honorary Whale spotter, and I'm getting free trips! so the rest of the photos are of Whales and Dolphins we saw, surfers riding the bar and some of the fish we caught! we managed it twice over the bar this week out of five aborted attempts!

The two ladies enjoying a glass of"Shlampagne" are my friend Mary and her friend Barbara, they are watching the Melbourne cup(on the telly! how sad is that!)

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