Camping on the Yorke Peninsula coast, South Australia. Popular fishing spot, camping behind the sand dunes, walk to the beach, small fee, pit toilet. Things to do nearby include visiting Balgowan and Moonta. We attempted to fish from a kayak for the first time… did we catch anything?
The snorkelling and diving in Pulau Weh, and the other islands of the Sabang area, was outstanding! We were truly astounded by the amount of fish, variety of marine life and the size of some of the fish we saw… We saw a manta ray, sharks, nudibranchs, frogmouth fish, ribbon eels and a gargantuan sweetlip. We also saw lionfish, scorpionfish, shrimpfish, long-horned cowfish, peacock manta shrimp, painted lobsters, sea snakes, and the entire star-studded cast of Finding Nemo!
Leaving your boat locked up in the tropics?
I’m not an expert; but having closed up and left our boat in the tropics. Twice, once with grim consequences, and once with excellent results, I feel I can impart a small bit of wisdom to those, who like me have, or are, battling mould, cockroaches, spiders, and ants. We left Thorfinn, our beloved home, in Langkawi up a river at a place called Hole in the Wall, for six weeks. When we arrived back we were confronted with a boat brimming with mould.
Vietnam was on my bucket list of places to visit and it didn’t disappoint. My favourite part of Vietnam?… Easy, the people. I found the Vietnamese people to be very welcoming and friendly. Second favourite thing… the food! Delicious noodle soups, meat filled baguettes and fresh wrap-it-yourself spring rolls. During our travels, we spent a lot of time eating where the locals eat, thus we engineered plenty of opportunities in which meeting, and interacting with, the local Vietnamese people was a forgone conclusion. What was not a forgone conclusion however, was how much we enjoyed their company and them ours.
Angkor Archaeological Park is an astonishing place full of ancient temples. The 400 square kilometre archaeological park became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992. The park is home to literally dozens of ancient temples in varied condition from complete ruin to well conserved. We visited many of them during our stay in Siem Reap. Four of the temples stood out, each in their own unique way. Angkor Wat is immense, Bayon is known for it’s carved faces, Ta Prohm is only semi cleared of the jungle that encroached it, and Banteay Srei is small, intricate and beautiful…
At 0930 I got a hit. The rod started screaming as the fish started running my line out. I grabbed the rod and realised I had a pretty big fish on it. I screamed out for Kelly to wake up. Kelly came staggering out of the cabin all groggy from sleep and I started yelling instructions to her…”get me the gimble belt for the rod”, “motor the boat forward”, “get a photo”, “go to the port”, “go to the starboard!”, “are you getting photos?”, “reverse!”, “go to the starboard”, “get my gloves”, “forward.. to the port”, “take a photo”, “get the gaff”, “starboard! starboard!”, “tie a rope on to the gaff”, “reverse”, “here it comes, get a photo”, “I need a drink, get me water”, “reverse, to the starboard” …