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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Seth Lakeman,pioneer of putting the "F" word back into Folk, has stopped briefly for a quick photo shoot on the first leg of his new Australian top venue tour, along with his band "The dog nobblers" Seth( 32 ,what! 2nd from the right wearing the hat) said he was pleased to be touring in some of the most prestigious theatres in the world, places like WOLUMLA, JIGADY CREEK,BERMAGUI,MERIMBULA to name but a few of these international gigs, but his arrival along with the "dogs" as they are affectionately known, was marred by the discovery that Seth(32,what!2nd from the right wearing the hat) was being impersonated by what Seth called"a young upstart" from somewhere on the pommy cowpat! apparently this neredowell had been accusing Seth(32, what! 2nd from the right and wearing the hat) of listening to him rehearsing by holding a glass to the wall of some low life dive in the U.K. where Seth(32,what!2nd from the right and wearing the hat) lives when he is "resting" and then recording sound alike covers and flogging them to the unsuspecting public! Seth(32,what!2nd from the right and wearing the hat) undeterred by this small hiccup Seth(32,what!2nd from the right and wearing the hat) said that if this Wombat continued to bother him he would get his mate and cobber G G, DAY-FEE (he isn't cheap!) to whack a couple of rocket launchers his way! or worse still to get the little bugger force fed with Seths(32,what! 2nd from the right and wearing the hat) dads Cornish pasties which are specifically designed to bring a whole new meaning to the word constipation!
Day two and another round of photo shoots for Seth(32, what! 2nd on the left and wearing yet another hat(no flies on this one!) this time with a group of old fishwives from the local port and as Seth,(32, what!2nd on the left) is well used to taking advantage of any port in a storm this situation is a familiar one! as he left for a well earned rest at a dingo dive in Sydney Seth,(2nd on the left) said "I would hope now that the Australian public have seen the"real" me they will get on with buying my records by the billycan full!

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Just in case you all think this has been one big holiday! then let me tell you that there has been some serious "mulching" going on behind the scenes here at the clearing! the tree surgeons came in to clear some of the debris accumulated over the years and all the brash was turned into mulch for the numerous flower and shrub beds at the same time, it was left in strategic piles at various places throughout the clearing, so along with creating new "features" we have been spreading the mulch before the really dry weather kicks in, talking of which(weather that is ) the daily temperature variations at this time of year are extraordinary, yesterday it was barely 17 degrees in the morning and yet on my way back from a beach fishing trip to Eden(I caught one small Tailor) it reached 31 degrees!
The pictures on todays blog are me mulching and an Oakes family get together on Sunday, the serious looking guy sitting down is "Pete" Pennies husband, silver surfer and musician!

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"When you are having fun" and it certainly does, after the fantastic experience of seeing Whales at close hand from a boat I thought in my infinite wisdom that it would be a great idea if we went up in a Helicopter to see what these magnificent creatures looked like from the sky, so i went to see this guy called Tim who is the local pilot working out of Merimbula, Tim said he could only take two at a time and so I thought that sounded great! the whole "shabang" to ourselves, come the morning Tim rang to say that Whales had been spotted in the bay and here we go! as soon as we got to the airstrip I realised why Tim had said he could only take two, the Helicopter was about the size of a small sidecar! we (Mike and I) climbed in, got the safety drill and off we went! the views from this tiny little capsule were stunning! we found only one whale(a large female) the rest seemed to have "sounded" but I managed to get some great photos of the area including a couple of "the clearing" on the way back!

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Jon and I have been paddling twice this weekend, yesterday we took the kayaks up to the top lake to have a look at the bird life on the reed and mangrove beds just beyond the airport, it was easy paddling down because the wind was behind us, but having increased considerably the journey back became more and more difficult and in the end we had to rig up a two man paddling machine that eventually got us back(knackered!) the problem seemed to be that Mikes kayak (which I was using, Mike retired injured through excess mulching and old age!) has a sort of cathedral hull which was being tossed up in the air each time a wave hit the bow this resulted in no progress at all in fact Merimbula bridge seemed to be getting smaller instead of bigger! the final result was that we both got very wet indeed, Jon in the front with his pointed bow and me behind with a rope keeping my bow close to the water, we still had to paddle like hell in order to make any progress and we finally made it but not without some cost, my little point and shoot was in my fleece pocket which was not and should have been in a dry bag! result, dead camera 2! lesson get a dry bag!
Today started perfectly, hot and humid (that's a clue!) and we took Jon's big Canadian canoe down to Blackfellers, the run out was perfect this time with the wind in our favour for getting back we were out for an hour before we looked behind us to see storm clouds building and the ominous rumbles of thunder, this time however we were in luck and arrived back at Blackfellers just as the heavans opened! the perfect paddle!

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Its the height of the Spring migration for several species of Whale here in South Australia,humpbacks and Southern Right Whales being the most often seen, Humpbacks often seen with young calves on their way to the Summer feeding grounds in the seas off Antarctica, they hug the southern Australian coast and stop here and there to rest and if there is food available, to feed as well before continuing the long journey south!
Hunting Whales has been given over to watching them along the coast with old Whaling ports like Eden and nearby Merimbula both supporting a cottage industry of Whale watching boats, these vessels are often Game fishing boats that "double up" for the migration season before going back to angling charters once the seas have warmed up in early December!
Mary, Mike and I went on a charter out of Eden yesterday in almost perfect conditions, in the four hours or so that we were at sea we saw some amazing close ups of both feeding and migrating Whales culminating in the sighting of a huge individual "breaching" (leaping clear of the water) the whole experience was very humbling seeing these great ocean dwellers going about their business, oblivious to the fact that they were being exploited by a boat full of human interlopers! the pictures on today's blog are the results of this trip.

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The Australians are nothing if not honest when it comes to calling a spade a spade! even if it means insulting the often hapless and ignorant recipient, for example, one of the favourite sporting and eating fish here is an estuary and surf dweller that is the target of most if not all Australian saltwater anglers, it can grow to 15lbs or so,provides superb sport on very light spinning gear and is without a doubt one of the best of eating fish,especially when served quickly pan fried with a little garlic and a Greek salad! it has to be said that it isn't the prettiest creature on Gods earth but it is nonetheless all and more of the things I have mentioned in its praise! so what have our Aussie friends christened this provider of sporting and culinary excellence? they call it a "FLATHEAD"!
I have found two beaches locally that have become favourites for a bit of "chillin",one is called BARMOUTH and its the opposite side of the River to PAMBULA and the other is called NORTH TURA which is just about ten minutes up the coast, the first is sheltered and peaceful with just the lapping sound of the ocean and the other is wild and footloose with the crashing of great rollers in from the Tasman sea!
I took myself off yesterday afternoon to Barmouth beach where I fished away a couple of hours of the incoming tide, I managed to catch two smallish Flatheads both of which I returned because supper was already arranged! the other pics on todays blog are views from the beach and the forest park leading to the beach, Im hoping to do some Whale-watching over the next few days so keep watching this space! Marys son Jon is going to have a look at my video probs within a few days so hopefully we can get some "atmo" back into the blog!

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I mentioned earlier in the blog that I had put an add in the local paper to see if I could unearth some old tackle to sell on EBAY and hopefully help to pay for a few extra fishing trips! I managed to buy one or two bits, including a couple of Hardy reels and then everything went quiet! last Sunday morning however I had a call from a guy who had lost his father three or four years ago and having seen my add would I be interested in looking at his late fathers fishing tackle collection with a view to buying it? he was only five minutes down the road so I went along to see it, the rest as they say is history! I bought the entire collection but had to grope around for every penny I possessed in order to do so, he was absolutely delighted and after I had paid him the several thousand dollars he was asking he said "I have a lot more stuff in the garage if you would be interested?" I said I would but would need a little time to re-group!(find more money!) the photos on the blog shows part but not all of the first purchase! the other pic is of a little Bush Wallaby and its Joey feeding in the clearing at dawn this morning! today we will be spreading mulch until it gets too hot to work outside!

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I seem to be having trouble posting the movie clips on to the blog! perhaps Amanda or someone bright can tell me why i cant get them to play back with sound?

Went a little more inland yesterday, up to Bega and then back on the coast road to Tathra, this was all through dairy country so not showing much sign of the recent drought that Australia has been going through because the area is artificially irrigated to keep up the milk production, i was driving for most of the day but seemed to get nowhere in the great land that is Australia! distances are huge here, if you look on the map you could be forgiven for thinking that this part of N.S.W. was almost a suburb of Sydney but in point of fact its more than six hours away by car! pics today are, Barmouth beach, Jimney in the bush, self portrait waiting for a bowl of seafood chowder!, inland forest, a good place to drive with the wife on a Sunday morning(sorry!)

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Every time I get to see a new location I think its more breathtaking than the one before! yesterday we went to the "Ben Boyd"National park which is only half an hour or so the other side of Pambula
the coastline as you can see from the pictures simply speaks for itself! the bush consists mainly of eucalyptus with tho odd almost prehistoric tree thrown in for good measure.
Whilst driving along the track leading to the beach we came across the first decent sighting of a large Snake so far,I managed to get some good close ups before it went off into the bush,we were not sure about the species, it could either have been a Tiger Snake(which is deadly venomous) a broad headed snake (which is also venomous) or a Diamond Python which is not venomous but can give you a nasty suck! we finally concluded later that it was a Diamond Python because at nearly 7ft long it was too big to be either of the others!(well I think so!)
Going on to a place called the Pinnacles which is formed strata of light sand and red clay,stunning sight with a backdrop of the Ocean! we then went to Haycock point beach were we came across a lone surf fisherman fishing for Bream(pronounced Brim over here) he was a very swarthy character, covered in tattoos and the colour of ebony, I asked if he had caught anything and he just pointed to the sand in front of where he was fishing, it took me a minute or two to see what he was pointing at but finally made out a large fish tail sticking out of the sand, he explained that in order to keep the catch fresh it was local practice to dig a hole and bury the fish with just the tail sticking out in order to find it again! he kindly dug it up and let me photograph him holding it but when i asked him if i could get a close up shot of his extraordinary face for the blog he glowered at me as though i owed him money! and said" nobodies blogging me mate"i retired gracefully and wished him luck!
we finished up having a picnic on a very sheltered beach called "Barmouth bay"
Tomorrow I'm headed off on my own back up to Bermagui to see how the offshore boats are doing, getting a bit impatient now to get an early reefing trip in whilst there are still a few colder water fish about.

p.s. saw a White Bellied Sea Eagle on the walk back to the car!

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Had a couple of days off the blog because the weather has been all over the place, one minute sun the next rain! just like the U.K.! this morning however it started out fine so Mike, Jon and i set out for a paddle from a place called "Blackfellers" which is the inlet and estuary of the Bega River, it was absolutely stunning! the sound of tropical birdlife and wilderness takes some beating! after about half an hour we looked back and looming over the horizon were the storm clouds again! we pushed back against the wind and squall and as soon as we landed(soaking wet!) it stopped and it was Summer again!

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I plan to go surf fishing for Tailor and Salmon at first light tommorrow, the beach is at north Tura and is one of the most beautiful beaches I have seen, within the Bournda National Park its surrounded by bush with very little hint of interference, I walked several miles of beach today and found only one lone angler, he was visiting from Victoria and had caught two very respectable Salmon! and two Tailor! top picture is sunset at the clearing

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The weather is still settling but the strong afternoon winds seem to be prevailing longer than usual, I took a boat out on the top lake today to try for a tailor or two but it eventually became so windy and cold that I had to give in! having landed the boat I sat on the quayside and had a cup of tea in the sun, it was up to 23 degrees within the space of as many minutes!
whilst having my tea I noticed this Stingray beside the jetty! look hard and you can see it!