Shady Camp

We left Kakadu and headed westward along the Arhnem Highway toward Darwin. There was one spot I wanted to go before we got back to a large town and that was Shady Camp in the Mary River National Park. It's a very popular spot for barra fishing and crocodiles, we were not disappointed. We have been here 3 days already and are having a ball. All we do all day is go fishing and croc watching with spectacular sunsets at night.

There is a barrage at the boat ramp here that separates the salt tidal waters and the fresh water of the wetland river system, this prevents the wetlands getting too much salt water in them and helps to preserve the fresh water ecology up river. It's interesting to watch the fresh water crocs on one side and the salt water crocks on the other.



Trace and I have both realized one of our goals for this year and that is to catch a barra. We had a cracka of a day today as we found a nice hole in one of the wet land estuaries and proceeded to spend all morning catching small barra and sharing the bank with crocs. Tracey went for a walk to a different spot and saw a big croc I saw yesterday. I only saw his head in the water as I was keeping an eye on him while I was fishing the other day, his eyes that were poking out if the water were were about 10-12 inches across. Trace came back today to report the guys she was with surmised him to be about 16-18 feel long as he was sun baking on the bank!! Below picture.

We are going for a boat ride tomorrow with a guy we have me here to go and have a look at the really big crocs up stream. Should be good.

Update, we went for the boat ride and were astounded at the size of some of these beasts. They were easily 20+ feet long! I have no words to convey how fantastic it is to see these guys in the wild. The crocks we saw today made all the guys we have seen up till now look like babies. Fantastic!



The barra we were catching were about 30-40cm long but the legal size up here on the Mary River is 55cm, we were having a ball!!! As the morning went on the fish seemed to get bigger and bigger when finally I landed a keeper, dinner! He ended up being 58cm, next to get a meter barra. So we had some salad and barra cooked on the barbie tonight for dinner.






An excellent day today, I think we will stay a few extra days. Next step is to head to Darwin, I have an uncle that lives in Berry Springs so we will stop in on him, have a look around Darwin and head back down to Katherine then west to the Kimberlies.

Hope everyone is well and I will update soon.