A short trip from Mataranka to Roper Bar to meet up with friends Alan & Shirley from Noosa. A stopover at the Mataranka store for some supplies and no surprise at the cost of items eg Lge Soda Water $5.00. 140km of narrow tar and 40km of red dirt. Sorry about the horizon - the trip is a bit bumpy sometimes. Not much traffic out here and only a couple of properties.
Set up camp near Al & Shirl then settled in for happy hour with a few other campers. The Roper River is a draw card for Barramundi fisherman from all over. It really is in Never Never land, miles from anywhere other than aboriginal communities of Eurapunga (Ura punga) & Ngukka (Nooka) . Surprisingly there are two stores nearby that sell everything from clothes, food, hardware, kitchenware, fuel and everything else that you can imagine. Even found B&W formal outfits for small boys - why? They wear them to funerals & weddings.
Mornings start with plenty of bird calls at 5 am just in time to wake you up ready for the days fishing.
Tone & Al got lucky first morning out together. Beginners luck & Tone hooked himself a fish from the riverbank at Als secret spot Apparently there was plenty of yahoohing. Tone is a bit wary of the old crocodilians that inhabit the area despite assurances that the local aborigines claim no one has been taken in the last 20 years. Just makes you think it has to be closer to the next human meal!
After a couple of hours fishing it's time to head down the river by boat to check the pots for Cherapin (a type of crayfish)which are used for bait. The river was glassed out when Al & I went down so the reflections were pretty. Kept an eye out for the big lizards but the water is warm so they were keeping low.
Second day out Tone got lucky again - an 86cm Barra. Some diehard fisherman camped here, some stay for 3 months.
Al busy on the "ironing board" cleaning the catch of the day. There are a number of boards around the camp - I think this would be the closest most of the men would get to an ironing board!
Roper Bar camp site. As you can see there are no cement slabs or tar roads in here. It's back to basics.
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