Andrew_P

Cos they are too awesome!!

Cos they are too awesome!!

Most of them have been recalled.

And if you want to get the Nissan home take a Toyota!

And if you want to get the Nissan home take a Toyota!

Nibble tips are my tip!
Live yabbies and worms work well for sand whiting. Anchor up and fish the edges of banks. Should be a chance of some bycatch using live yabbies.
Enjoy!

Nibble tips are my tip!
Live yabbies and worms work well for sand whiting. Anchor up and fish the edges of banks. Should be a chance of some bycatch using live yabbies.
Enjoy!

And if you want to get the Nissan home take a Toyota!

And if you want to get the Nissan home take a Toyota!

And if you want to get the Nissan home take a Toyota!

At least you got out and about for a bit Ed, and got a few feeds.
If you want to go to the far north take a Jeep, if you want to get home take a Nissan.

Sounds like crisis averted Ed! I'd have sold the Jeep after the first trip (actually i would never have bought a Jeep in the first place!).
If you get to the Daintree go check out the Daintree Ice Cream Company in Diwan. The ice cream is handmade on site and the girls in the shop are friendly. Its cool to walk around the exotic fruit trees and if Daintree Dave is there ask if he can show you his cocoa and vanilla plants.
Disclaimer: Daintree Dave may/may not be my brother in law (fishing tragic too)
Andrew

Sounds like crisis averted Ed! I'd have sold the Jeep after the first trip (actually i would never have bought a Jeep in the first place!).
If you get to the Daintree go check out the Daintree Ice Cream Company in Diwan. The ice cream is handmade on site and the girls in the shop are friendly. Its cool to walk around the exotic fruit trees and if Daintree Dave is there ask if he can show you his cocoa and vanilla plants.
Disclaimer: Daintree Dave may/may not be my brother in law (fishing tragic too)
Andrew

Unfortunately we never made it to the Daintree, Mossman Gorge or the Atherton tableland, that might be scheduled for another trip in the future. Went out on the "Dragon Lady" and despite being bricked on the Coral with a couple of huge hits, I managed to only get a legal sized Fingermark bream (Moses perch) and a semi decent Gold Spot Trevally up on board, both ended up on the plate for 6 meals. I had booked to go on the Norseman 2 days later but they notified me that they didn't have the numbers to go out, so missed out as every other boat was booked out whilst I was there.
Next day went for a sail to Mackay reef on a 25mft cat, it's a huge boat and only had about 18 people on it for the day, water was quite clean (10-15m visibility) and nice snorkeling, water was cooler than I would have liked but still quite good. They required us to snorkel together so that they could keep an eye on us, which wasn't ideal but probably done for insurance requirements to ensure they didn't lose anyone.
By the time we got down to Cairns, the reef closure was in place so no more fishing for me. Did the Kuranda rail trip whilst in Cairns and then started to head back home after 4 days, caught up with Misha (aka Sylvathorn)  on the way back at Bowen, got back home and the missus 2 days later decided we should go to go to the Gold Coast to see daughter No 1 and bub, so more driving, all up we did about 4000+ km. The car kept throwing up several more error codes on the way back from Port Douglas, but with a quick jiggle of the sensors they all disappeared, will have to get them checked out now that I am back home.
For some reason, I can't seem to post up any pics!

All the words are there to tell you its made off shore not in Aus.  Is that good or bad….time will be the only test of that.  
I am sitting here in my chinese built but locally fitted out hybrid camper van next to a creek loving everything about it but this is about the 3rd generation of this model van so they are now quite sorted.

im in the market for similar and ive seen a few for sale on this side of the country. i think the hulls are imported by Haines and fitted out here rather than made here (but i could be wrong). i did a bit of googling and the SCB (not sure whether they are affiliated or not but similar production method for their hulls) in the US have had lots of trouble with their hulls cracking - so not sure that the technology will withstand Australian conditions.
Id hate to drop coin on a fibreglass boat and have to nurse it like a pressed tinny!
Never ridden in one but so cannot give a definitive review - id be interested to hear from anyone that has owned/ ridden in one!
 

im in the market for similar and ive seen a few for sale on this side of the country. i think the hulls are imported by Haines and fitted out here rather than made here (but i could be wrong). i did a bit of googling and the SCB (not sure whether they are affiliated or not but similar production method for their hulls) in the US have had lots of trouble with their hulls cracking - so not sure that the technology will withstand Australian conditions.
Id hate to drop coin on a fibreglass boat and have to nurse it like a pressed tinny!
Never ridden in one but so cannot give a definitive review - id be interested to hear from anyone that has owned/ ridden in one!
 

Thought I'd throw up a video of some pics from some sessions over the past month or so.
 

Sounds like crisis averted Ed! I'd have sold the Jeep after the first trip (actually i would never have bought a Jeep in the first place!).
If you get to the Daintree go check out the Daintree Ice Cream Company in Diwan. The ice cream is handmade on site and the girls in the shop are friendly. Its cool to walk around the exotic fruit trees and if Daintree Dave is there ask if he can show you his cocoa and vanilla plants.
Disclaimer: Daintree Dave may/may not be my brother in law (fishing tragic too)
Andrew

Sounds like crisis averted Ed! I'd have sold the Jeep after the first trip (actually i would never have bought a Jeep in the first place!).
If you get to the Daintree go check out the Daintree Ice Cream Company in Diwan. The ice cream is handmade on site and the girls in the shop are friendly. Its cool to walk around the exotic fruit trees and if Daintree Dave is there ask if he can show you his cocoa and vanilla plants.
Disclaimer: Daintree Dave may/may not be my brother in law (fishing tragic too)
Andrew

Sounds like crisis averted Ed! I'd have sold the Jeep after the first trip (actually i would never have bought a Jeep in the first place!).
If you get to the Daintree go check out the Daintree Ice Cream Company in Diwan. The ice cream is handmade on site and the girls in the shop are friendly. Its cool to walk around the exotic fruit trees and if Daintree Dave is there ask if he can show you his cocoa and vanilla plants.
Disclaimer: Daintree Dave may/may not be my brother in law (fishing tragic too)
Andrew

Sounds like crisis averted Ed! I'd have sold the Jeep after the first trip (actually i would never have bought a Jeep in the first place!).
If you get to the Daintree go check out the Daintree Ice Cream Company in Diwan. The ice cream is handmade on site and the girls in the shop are friendly. Its cool to walk around the exotic fruit trees and if Daintree Dave is there ask if he can show you his cocoa and vanilla plants.
Disclaimer: Daintree Dave may/may not be my brother in law (fishing tragic too)
Andrew

Sounds like crisis averted Ed! I'd have sold the Jeep after the first trip (actually i would never have bought a Jeep in the first place!).
If you get to the Daintree go check out the Daintree Ice Cream Company in Diwan. The ice cream is handmade on site and the girls in the shop are friendly. Its cool to walk around the exotic fruit trees and if Daintree Dave is there ask if he can show you his cocoa and vanilla plants.
Disclaimer: Daintree Dave may/may not be my brother in law (fishing tragic too)
Andrew

Well the missus and I finally headed North on our way to Port Douglas, this is our second attempt at it, as the first trip last year  was terminated early when we blew a coolant hose just near Sarina. Our first overnight stop was at the Denison Hotel (Rockhampton)  after leaving Hervey Bay. It's an old Qld railway headquarters building which has been converted into a hotel, with 4 poster king sized bed and a spar bath, the large rooms have 14-16ft ceilings.
Left next morning towards Airlie Beach, almost no smoke from the fires on the way up, but when we got there the wind was blowing quite strongly (20-25knots). Went out on the 85ft sailing cat "Camira" for a snorkelling trip to Dumbell Island, the snorkelling was fairly abysmal as the wind the night before got to 30 knots so the water was churned up and high tide to boot. Visibilty was about 1-1.5m and unfortunately afterwards they only took us to Hills Inlet and not Whitehaven beach as we were hoping for. However the trip out and back was really good with as much food as you wanted, and as much free wine, beer and alcoholic cider as you could consume.
I broke a heel strap on my flippers and the boat didn't have a size to fit me (I have large flat feet) so just snorkelled without. I bought another pair of flippers and diving socks at Tackle World in Cannonvale.
The night before our next leg to Mission Beach, the Jeep threw a hissy fit and the computer displayed a heap of major error codes. We became stressed and were worried that it would be the end of the trip again, managed to get UltraTune in Cannonvale  squeeze the Jeep in and to do a scan on it, they were very helpful  and apart from one minor voltage issue with the MAP sensor which a clean fixed, we were good to go and left at 10:00am. Had a few more error messages pop up during the drive up, it looks like one or two of the sensors might have a loose connection as after jiggling the connections the errors disappeared and everything was back to normal.
After breakfast our next stop was 2 nights at Mission Beach at a B&B, where we saw the local Cassowary's walk around the gardens outside which was nice, dropped into the local winery for wine tastings and picked up 6 bottles of liquors/ports to take back with us. They were a nice drop!.
Arrived at Port Douglas and staying at the Ramada, today we visited the "Australian Chocolate Farm".  If you like Chocolate, then I highly recommend this place. It's 15 minutes out of town at Shannonvale and the Chocolate deserts are to die for! The chocolate is grown and processed on the farm and the deserts are made by the owner who is a Master Pastry Chef. Unbelievably good!
Tomorrow we are heading out on another large sailing Cat out to Mackay Reef for more snorkelling, the wind has died down so should be a great day. The first fishing trip is on Tuesday out on the Dragon Lady followed by another fishing trip on the Norseman on Thursday, they are both large vessels so a bit of wind won't bother them if it picks up. I tore a muscle badly in my lower back just before we left home on this trip and it's only just started to feel better now, I am taking my stand up harness with me fishing so I don't aggravate my back should I hook up on something big, it might look a bit wanky and overkill for bottom bashing but better to be safe than in pain for another 10 days.
Will do an update afterwards and looking forward to fishing as it has been a very, very long time since I have been fishing.

HI Guys,
Was hoping the photo issue was solved before posting this trip but better late than never.
Left home early on the 4th October and met mate a Nudgee and did the drive to the old stomping grounds of Hampo (also known as Rockhampton).
Met a mate with his 4.53 Territory Sea Jay, stocked up with ice and fuel and headed north to Stanage bay.
Road in was really good after hearing all the horror stories. 70km of bitumen and only 30km of dirt which had mostly been recently graded but pretty dry and dusty in some parts.
Set up camp late arvo and rigged up ready for the first time chasing barra. Excited was an understatement.
Now unfortunately due to the first night piss up we were up a little bit late the next morning and definitely a bit shady. Anyway we were off. Headed out the front for a jig on some rubble ground for no luck and a sea sick mate who had never been offshore, nothing to do with still being hungover.
Headed up the passage to the first creek and saw fish on the side scan straight away, second snag we fished and about half an hour in I hooked the first barra on a vibe in deep on the snag. Great hit and fight and landed my first barra at 75cm.
A few casts later on the same vibe I hooked a lot bigger one and lost it not long after. A mighty swirl is all I saw. Doh!
Change of spots and with lots of fish on the sounder tried the same vibe and hooked a 63cm grunter which gave me a bit of curry. PB and back she went.
Back to the first snag a little bit later later and a change of lure to a fat shad and I had annother 76cm Barra. A lot better fight and eventually in the net.
And then I lost the magic vibe on the snag, and as much as we tried we couldn’t get it back. I shed a tear or two I have to say. Didn’t get a bite on any other colour all trip.
Day two was very slow and bloody hot. The dog was not happy and we had to constantly wet him down.
Straight to the creeks and hit probably 20 creeks for a few fingermark biggest by my mate at 42cm. Missed a few bites on Texas rigged paddle tails and learnt a bit of respect after being dusted a few times.
Skipper got a 65cm barra at one of the last snags for the day. Back for more beers and snooze for me. The other two went out for a late arvo session with no luck on the ledge out the front.
Saturday was windy with 15 – 20kt SE blowing early but we’ll just go ‘around the corner’ my mate said. 60kms late we get back to the ramp broken, battered but with my mate getting a 76cm barra. Bugger only started fishing 6 months ago. I won’t forget that trip back in a hurry and either will my back.
Good feed at the pub that night and packed up camp in the morning for the drive back home.
Great trip with a couple of good mates and already planning the next one.
 https://imgur.com/gallery/clIm6RJ