Lingering Longer at Wonga...

'Linga Longa at Wonga' is the catch phrase on the camps business card...rather apt I reckon!...

Why wouldn't you?...

Our current neighbours came a month ago and were going to stay 3 days...

They're still here and loving it!...maybe its because they have such lovely neighbours in us!...just kidding!

Last day of January already!....

The 'Potted Garden' is flourishing...

We have been busy on our days off from work, continuing with the refurbishing of the inside of the caravan...it will never be a 'new' one, but it is already much better space wise than it was...and much more homely.

I love it!...I love being home in our little space!

Hans has the best workshop around...plenty of fresh air, sea breeze and views!

Spent a few hours fishing yesterday, before going to work in the arvo....and there was plenty of 'action' on the end of my line...exciting stuff!...

You don't know what you're pulling in till you land it on the beach!

Caught two of these Hammerhead Sharks...

Icky to hold!!

Below Black Tipped Reef Shark...

Two catfish and two Sooty Grunters...One small one...but the one below was worth keeping...

The first fish we've caught that we can eat...

So we had him for lunch...

Tasted beautiful!...straight from the sea!

A couple of locals were out with their drag nets and generously gave me small bait fish from their haul.That gave me the bait to keep on fishing!

There were also prawns being caught with the cast nets...they're getting bigger in size now and are delicious! Hans caught a good size Trevalli (not sure how you spell that) in his cast net...not quite big enough for a meal so he went back to mature further!

Quote For The Week...

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Camp Life January

It's been another Wet Wonga Week!!! and I love it!...In the last 7 days we've had just over 300ml of rain.

Also of interest in our area was the spotting of a crocodile on our beach.Our acting manager at the Wonga Beach Camp while Ce Ce is away, Marilyn, made it into the Cairns Post!..Cairns 'leading' newspaper...(cos its the only newspaper in Cairns!). (She is our neighbour, by the way so you could say 'we are living next to a celebrity')...

A croc on the beach is not unusual here, as when we get the wet season rain, it flushes the creeks and rivers...it is known there is a resident croc in each river/creek which flows out to the beach. Guess they come out to the beach have a look around and see if there is anything interesting on the menu, like a human or maybe a dog as an entree!

So now the 'Actung' signs are at the public beach entrances to warn unsuspecting tourists.

My mate Al, has been in Townsville visiting his son, daughter-in-law and grand daughter for 3 weeks and during his absence, the annexe on his caravan leaked badly and basically disintergrated...also in this time a huge palm frond landed on his 'carport' tearing a whole in it!..

Yesterday afternoon at 'Early Openers' we wrapped warning fencing around his caravan site, put up an appropriate sign and even a hard hat to greet him on his return this morning from his holiday...

Early Openers -Keith,Patrick and Shorty (with his back to the camera) and Marydog.

Patrick getting a handshake from Marydog before her 'treat'...an Italian sausage...

When Al is here he usually 'treats' her with chicken necks he buys specially for her (Marydog belongs to Keith and his wife Rosina)...As you can probably see...Marydog is 'well treated'!

So this morning Al came home...

Al and his best mate Shorty. At least he could still manage a big Smile!

In the fishing department Hans caught his first prawns this morning in the net...

He was wrapped!...10 of them! So we put them in the billy and cooked the morsels!...

They were delicious....they reckon in a week, they will have trebbled in size (the ones he left in the sea)... so looks like prawns will be on the menu the next week or so! YUM!

The darker one in the pot is apparently called the 'leader prawn'...so is the one responsible for leading them all into Hans's net!(Some leader!)

Patrick has been cultivating and replanting one of the camp gardens in his spare time...He's got tomatoes, banana plants, pineapples, all sorts of flowering plants starting to flourish...this is his first flower on one of the Canna Lily's ...

Quote for the week...

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Wet Season Magic

So here we are in the New Year!...

In our potted garden...One of our Bromeliad's presented us with it's first flower...

In the fishing department, Hans has been perfecting the art of throwing the net to catch bait fish and prawns when the time is right...

And I've been throwing a line in when I have spare time...

Last week I struggled for 30minutes to bring in 'something big' on my line...

Only to find I'd caught a leopard stingray!...

Oh well good practice!

This is the sign on Bob's camp...Bob is a keen fisherman...in fact the whole camp feasted on the huge Mackerel he caught the other night...Happy hour became a fish n chip night also...Yum!

This poor little fella fell out of his nest, from high above us in the Callophyllum trees, after the nest was attacked by a butcher bird...

With the wet season comes the mould in your homes, but also amazing fungi in the gardens and wet mulch around...


They only last a day...but are beautiful in their own right.

For the last few days, everyone in this area has been watching the radar and weather warnings as a cyclone was developing in the Gulf of Carpentaria north west of us...Yesterday the cyclone was named Charlotte....

Residents of Far North Queensland are well used to this being a cyclone prone time of the year as monsoonal troughs come down from the equator and cyclones develop over higher than average ocean temperatures...Cyclone kits are prepared as the area is often cut off from 'civilisation'...eg Power,Shops,Work etc

Many of the cane farmers regard the coming of cyclones as a blessing as they usually turn into rain depressions, so they don't have to irrigate their crops...

Indeed, for locals in the know it's a time to rest, reflect and enjoy the flowing rivers and watching the rainforest flower and renew itself...

The time of year in the tropics when all of life comes to a crescendo...

Well last night such a crescendo occurred, with gale force winds and torrential rain which luckily for us didn't quite coincide with the king tide...

I was up at 4am...

and was going out of the caravan for a smoke when I stepped into ankle deep water...

So of course I grabbed the camera!

Our mats were floating, the back tarp had come away, my jandals (thongs for the Aussies) had floated away...

Our neighbours Tony and Marilyn slept through the whole night oblivious to the fact that their camp outside their coaster van was under water!

Hans and I went for a 'looksie' down on the shore on daybreak....these storms bring up a fair amount of flotsam...there were coconuts bobbing up and down in the surf, pieces of trees,timber but what caught our attention was a bottle laying in the sand...check out what was in the bottle!

Then at 9.30am the king tide peaked...not 10 metres from our site

Went for a bit of a drive (as you do!) to check out whats happening around the area..

This was the road into Mossman this morning...only open to 4wd vehicles.

Anichs Creek

An indication of how high the river rose last night!

So it's been an exciting time!!!....Love the wet season :)