Farewell to Tinnaroo

  

 Well it’s almost time to leave good old Lake Tinnaroo before cabin fever creeps in, heaven knows the mould has, after spending the longest & wettest wet season on record and two cyclones later in Far North Queensland. And the wet is most probably not over yet, but we’re hopeful and have started to plan our trip west to Harts Range in Northern Territory of Australia, on a fossicking Adventure for Garnets & Zircons.

We are also less than 2 weeks away from our Undara Experience and the opportunity to film the longest single lava flow recorded in the world, just 275 kilometres south west from Cairns.

The filming of Undara for Gemseek’s documentary series will be a journey of discovery to unearth the secrets of our timeless land, and to tell a story which began Some 190,000 million years ago in this part of the country.

But we are not going to give away too much information; you’ll have to wait for the DVD. But you can receive our exclusive membership Gem seek Travel Blog with behind the scenes photography straight to your inbox,

So please sign up as follower @ www.gemseek.blogspot.com

 we will sorely miss this beautiful place, this paradise on Earth,
but in these last days we have fulfilled our ambition to capture our first Barramundi each and also have landed a good catch of Sooty Grunters, or Black Brim to some, our biggest being a very fat 2.5 kilo specimen.

I was fortunate to meet a local fishing legend Greg, who has fished the Tinnaroo dam for many years, and just about always catches a decent sized Barramundi. Greg fishes from a two man canoe which makes for a more exciting catch.

At his invitation I went fishing with him one night, just after sunset you see the best time to catch Barramundi in generally is around 1-3 hours after sunset and again 1-3 hours before sun rise. That night it took only one hour to catch two huge Barra’s which we then released .As the larger they are the muddier they taste, and in this fresh water stocked dam they do not bread and so grow into monsters of the deep. Laurie my partner caught the first one several nights before from our tinny and being slightly smaller, that one tasted great.

 The lake is such a peace full place during the week, but on weekends it’s a whole new ball game with V8 jet boats speeding past towing adrenaline junkies of all ages and on all forms of aids from knee boards and ski’s to blow up toys of all shapes. They arrive at dawn in groups and quickly assemble their portable outdoor gazebos, so critical for a good day out in the tropical north. Everyone pitches in to unload the boat of its supply’s for the day. Then its race on, to see who will be first to break the lakes mirror surface. This our last weekend here there is a huge canoeing regatta on and there is people & boats everywhere. Being involved with water sports is such a great healthy family day out and has given us many hours of entertainment over the past months, watching the locals at play.

We have met some remarkable people in this end of the country, like musicians Bob & Sheryl otherwise known as Cuddle’s & Co Music experience. Local icons of the Tablelands since the late 70’s and many a happy hour has extended into the night as us happy Yungaburra campers sang along.

Aerie and Topsy another traveling couple from Collie in WA added a European flavour to our rag tag choir. And Aeries guitar playing reached new heights of development under Bob & Cheryl’s tuition and even recorded his own cd during our stay. We have learnt the art of disc bowels played & perfected usually by RV campers but it seems I have a natural talent, pity I don’t have an RV or it could be straight to the international rally of RV games. Our camping friends are a great mix of different people and we all hope to catch up again one day on the road. It’s the people that are the true gems of one’s travels.

So from all of us here at Yungaburra it’s time to start packing, and it’s westward we’re heading to dry out our soggy vans and mouldy cloths, and fossick those special stones.

Stay safe & remember look after those gems.
 http://www.gemseek.com.au/