Bathurst Heads

Mud, Mud Crabs & Giant Black Lip Oysters.



Sunset

Setting off from old Laura, we planned to check out track conditions to Bathurst Head, we stopped at the ranger station and he had nothing to tell us because it wasn't in the National Park. The only way to find out was to go there.
 

Our First obstacle was a long  long creek crossing, wasn't deep but about 100m long. After a couple hours of nice red dirt roads we thought we're nearly there if we keep this speed up, but the track kept getting smaller and slower until there was grass growing in the middle, and even in the wheel tracks too.

Then the mud started.

After carefully assessing each option through the mud, I chose the easiest one, through the muddy water, flicking mud everywhere, it was great fun, and I got through, the other two Misty's followed, and we carried on down the ever degrading track. The next mud pit was just as bad, I didn't hesitate to go, and just past that the track split into several tracks, all muddy, James walked ahead and said it was impassable, which is saying something, he always says just go 'she'l be right mate', after searching more of the rabbit warren we found the main track behind a fallen tree,so back on track!

Meandering along windy narrow and sometimes muddy tracks, around a lot of fallen trees, across long salt flats with more mud, pulled the two Pajero's through on one crossing,( My Mits'y Challenger Rules again), built a bridge across a salt flats creek, we finally arrived, Bathurst Heads at 5pm 3 hours later than expected.
 

The Rocky Shore

A perfect Beach, rocky headlands and camping anywhere you like, I'm fairly sure it's aboriginal land, or unowned land, so there's pretty much no regulation on anything. Or no one enforcing it anyway.

First thing I did was go down to the water to wash the mud and dust off, I took the cast net and got bait, and a Flathead for dinner all in one cast, and I hadn't even washed the mud off.  We got our lines out and went for a fish off the rocks, got a couple small catfish, James got a big catfish which I filleted, and baited the crab pot with fish head.

 We got two big crabs on the fishing line, a late dinner of Flathead and mud crab, well worth the long drive.

The next morning we had another big crab in the pot for breaky. I went for a quick paddle on the kayak, hoping to find a fish and hide from the croc's, we haven't seen one yet, I gave that up fairly quick after I discovered about 1km off shore I was still in 1m of water. So we ate our crabby breakfast packed a lunch and walked about 5km out to the next headland, the first bit of standing water at low tide. 

Black Lip Oyster

There were so many interesting shells washed up I had to stop picking them up.
About half way there we found giant Black Lip Oysters at low tide, I have tried oysters several times and don't like them raw, but these where something else. Big thick and textured, straight off the rock, we used a screw driver and collected a sack full in their shell to cook on the fire, and shelled a heap, filled my drink bottle lol, much lighter to carry without shells.


 Out at the heads we caught a couple of Brim, but I think we missed the best fishing time, got a good feed of oysters on the fire for dinner while watching the sun set.

sunset

The next day we packed up and went back down the muddy track by ourselves as the other 2 Mits'y had left the day before, was a good drive about 2 hours, and we stopped at the estuary for a quick fish and got  2 Brim, 1 Grunter and 1 Mangrove jack, within half an hour of stopping, the tide turned, sun started to set so we tried to move away from the biters to set up camp, no luck.



Mangrove Jack Fish

We set up camp on the side of the river, up a bank away from croc's. Got 8 decent catfish on the high tide that night, and thought we spotted our first crocodile, it was just something big swimming up the river didn't actually see it. We got a bit worried when the high tide came right up to the top of bank, we thought it was a high bank, but it turned out fine.
 

Catfish and Oysters for dinner, the rivers up here are nice and clean, so the dirty old catfish is actually nice, the trick is to fillet it from behind the ribs (wasting a lot), leave the skin attached to the tail so you can skin the fillet, because the skin is too slimy to grip without pliers, then you are left with a fish frame with two ties to tie it in the crab pot. Cooked in butter, coconut oil, and garlic, very nice. In the morning we had a nice crab in the pot, using cat fish for crab bait.
 

While packing up I found out why the roof rack has been moaning & groaning, turns out the rough track had riped the factory lugs out of the challenges roof, on three of six, so using half, no wait all my cunning bush mechanic skills  I jammed a jandal, under each mount and tied it down through the windows, seems to be working so far but we will see how it fairs on the corrugations of the Red Dust Highways. All Packed up and headed towards Musgrave.




Sunrise

When is Clean up Australia Day? because James can have a day off that day, he tidied up a deserted camp, got a perfect Coleman 2man pop-up tent 3 cans of rum and half a pack of smokes, not bad for a mornings work.



Old Abandon Truck