Weekend Away for Aussie Aussie Day in Karridale.

Penny and Spence: Jimny

Dave and Cindy: Prado

Ivo and Lucy: Landcruiser

Sean: Triton

Shane: Triton

Simon and Jacob: Triton

Wilco and Nayeli: Lexus

David and Megan: Patrol

We all arrived down south at various times. Dave and Cindy, Shane, and Simon and Jacob arriving Friday afternoon, Sean, David and Megan, Ivo and Lucy and I on Saturday morning and Wilco and Nayeli Saturday afternoon. Spence had been down there already for a couple of peaceful days escaping the wife, and meandering round the block on the ride-on lawnmower. I came down in the Mustang – lovely drive but my poor baby got hit by stones from an uncovered truck on the way and is a bit scratched.

While the men went off for one of many fishing trips, Lucy, Cindy and I went down to Augusta – visited my mum, and had a swim at Flinders cove. Yes it was cold – but lovely.

Dinner at the Karridale rounded off a fairly cruisy day and we returned ‘home’.

The heavy rain in the early hours of the morning squashed any inclination to head off fishing at 5:00 am.

Black Point – Stepping Stones and Surfers Cove

Saturday we had a full day’s drive out to Black Point and Lake Jasper. The tracks were sandy, with a few hills and wombat holes, but nothing hard. We were keen to see how the Jimny would do on sand and as expected it went really well, although he did look a bit like a toy car with all the ‘real’ ones. We stopped first at the Stepping Stones for some drone time, and then over to Surfers Cove where it was a long climb down to the beach for Shane to throw a line in.

Lake Jasper

Next stop was Lake Jasper for lunch and a swim. It’s a really beautiful spot right in d’Entrecasteaux national park. Megan magically produced an inflatable canoe from somewhere and paddled round the lake. When she had finished it disappeared in a similar manner – it was all a bit like Mary Poppin’s handbag.

After lunch we made our way to the Brockman highway and back to Karridale for a fairly quiet evening sitting around chatting for some, and an optimistic trip down to the beach for the keen fishermen.

Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park

After trying a few more tracks, including an interesting hill descent we stopped in a pretty spot clearing with beautiful grass tress for a quick break. The gentleman in the oncoming vehicle looked like he was getting a serious ear bashing from his wife as he approached the hill climb.

Back at the Ranch

While the driving and fishing in that area is wonderful, the best part of these trips is probably the time we spend ‘back at the ranch’ The afternoon included some quad bike riding and some serious food preparation – in advance of Pizza night.

Pizza night was wonderful – Dave made the pizza dough from scratch, at the same time making an instructional video for others, including his own special ingredient (Milo). We all ate far too much. Despite that we all found space for the chocolate cake and custard later .

Lets talk baking

Shane and Dave demonstrated that, not only can these guys catch fish, and prepare great food, they actually clean up afterwards!

The evening also involved some seriously dodgy singing and dancing. (pictures of that not provided – what happens in Karridale stays in Karridale).

Discussion progressed to the organisation of the Karridale Festival, likely to include movie projection, some offensively loud music and even more offensively bad dancing and singing (there is no-one that can hear us after all).

The next morning we headed home. We really are incredibly lucky to have the beautiful South West on our doorstep.

Come and check out the 4×4 explore vid of this trip

Click here to see the YouTube explore vi d

Fishing Report written by Dave F

Having Penny and Spence’s holiday house open to the Club (Thanks Penny and Spence ), gave some of the club ‘fish’os’ a chance to do some fishing, the house is just a hop, skip and jump away from the beach – we just had to drive down ‘Bob’s Track’ to get there.

On Saturday morning, Shane and myself arose to the morning kookaburra alarm clock (4.50am). The morning was perfect. No winds. We set off for Bob’s track, making our way down and found our spot.

We had started fishing with not much action happening. Shane mentioned that last time he was there, he was a pinch further down, like 50m further, and there may have been a hole that the fish liked to swim in.

Sure enough we started catching a couple; 2 Whiting and 3 Herrings. Sadly, we had to leave this spot, we just ran out of time. We wanted to be back for breaky.

A few more of the crew had arrived at camp, looking to do a small beach run, so a few of us packed the fishing rods again, but unfortunately, no fish to be caught.

Unable to fish the next morning due to an awesome trip having been planned, a few of us went down for a night fish session. Tonight was not a fishing night. High tides meant the beach was half under water. We had to walk through a lake to reach the ocean. The waves we so far out, that even with a big sinker, we just couldn’t get far out enough. We googled the tide charts, and perfect, low tide was 5.32am the next morning.

The night wasn’t a total waste. The sky view was amazing.

5.32am the next morning. Shane, Sean, Jacob and myself made our way down to the beach. We tried to find Shane’s honey hole spot, and I think we found it. The ocean was perfect, low tide, low waves and virtually no winds.

We all started setting up with our priorities, Shane, Jacob and myself set the rods up and Sean with the coffee mocha for our essential morning caffeine in take.

With about 10 herrings caught, they were quickly filleted up and we returned home. A bit of salt, lemon pepper seasoning and straight on the pan. A squeeze of lemon and we were done.