We slowly crawled out of bed in the freezing cold and began layering ourselves with thermals and whatever else we could find to warm up, before hitting the high Tasman Seas.
A quick visit to the local bakery for brekky and a warm drink and we were ready to catch the big one!
Rocky the boat charter operator and his deckhand John were waiting for us when we arrived and after laying out a couple of boating rules to the kids we were on our way through the winding "Bay Of Fires" out of St Helen's and into the open water.
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| The sun rising over St Helen's |
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| The boys, rearing to go |
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| Rocky, the skipper of Salt Shaker |
Our first stop was trawling for tuna and before long Jack, Harry and I had managed to pull in some stripy tuna, not great eating fish but perfect for bait and some deep sea fishing.
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| Jack nabs the first stripy tuna |
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| Harry gets his turn |
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| Sonia pulls in a stripy |
The conditions weren't perfect for deep sea fishing, the seas and swell were high, but we decided to give it a go anyway.
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| Richard with his new go pro camera |
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| Richard with Rocky's new electric reel |
While I took a seat upstairs in the fresh air trying to forget about the notion of anything as ridiculous as seasickness... I watched down below as Richard used, for the first time, an electronic reel to pull in first a Gem Fish followed by several blue eyed trevalla (great eating fish).
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| Richard with a Gem! |
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| A blue eyed trevalla |
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| A blue eyed trevalla trifecta |
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| The boys with more travella |
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| Nina sleeping through all the excitement |
It was on the last try at deep water fishing that Richard got what we all thought was the Big One... It took a while to try to bring the deep sea monster in and everyone at this stage was intrigued as to what it might be... 15 metres of line left and we were all convinced it was a shark so we cleared the deck ready for the haul in.
Within seconds this beast then took off again and before long, to everyone's amazement, a massive 4 metre mako shark breeched itself out of the water, snapping the line and moving on to his own new adventure.
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| The seasick cameraman was a little slow off the mark with the mako shot |
We were left in amazement at what we had seen, disappointed that we didn't get a closer look but grateful for the experience.... sorry I couldn't get a better picture to share with you all... I was at the ready, but still too slow.
We returned back after a long day at sea, ready for dinner and bed... We were all exhausted! We had enough fish to fill the freezer.
It had also been lovely to catch up with Rocky, the man we had met in Bali in a hotel pool bar seven years earlier. We had promised him back then that we would look him up if ever in St Helen's and we did.
The following day was packing up camp and leaving St Helen's but not before Jack went back to Rocky's boat to meet one of the guys from one of his favourite fishing shows Hook, Line & Sinker... Rocky's charter for the day.
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| Jack meets Andrew from Hook, Line & Sinker |
Our destination when we left on Tuesday morning the 27th of March was Strahan, on the west coast, but by the time the day was almost over, we were headed towards Burnie, on the north coast.
Why the change of direction? Richard had lost a quarter of one of his back molars during the day so we had to head towards a dentist.
A few phone calls and we had an appontment on Thursday evening in Burnie.
We decided we would stop along the way in the central highlands and try our luck at some trout fishing at Arthur's Lake... All the locals had said it was a sure bet to catch trout.
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| The kids ready to go trout fishing |
So try as they might, the boys and Nina took on Arthurs lake in the tinny, but again not luck with the elusive trout.
The area was unbelieveably cold though, 1300 metres above sea level might have had something to do with it and apparently a week earlier we would have seen snow.
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| Nina was so cold she went to sleep with her new earmuffs on |
So Thursday morning the 29th of March ... we packed everything up at Pumphouse Campground near Arthur's Lake and headed towards Burnie. We stopped along the way at the Great Lake, 1400 metres above sea level, it was massive, at least 40 kilometers long.
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| The Great Lake, 1400 metres above sea level |
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| All of us at The Great Lake Lookout |
We arrived in Burnie late afternoon, a bigger city than I had thought, but the coastline along the north is beautiful.
It feels like we've crossed into a different country.
From amazing mountain territory in the morning to the coast by afternoon, the state certainly covers it all.
Richard had his dentist appointment...a filling and a numb mouth and he was as good as new.
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