Matt Down Under

Monday I met Allan who works at the town council in Numbulwar. I was hoping he could give me some information or maps about the places and areas in town I’m allowed to go and which ones are safe in regards to crocs or buffalos. Somehow we came across fishing and he invited me to join him or his mates on his boat, so today I joined Frank and Graham and we took Allan’s boat for a ride up the mangrove river to catch barramundi.

I had never been fishing before but I always wanted to, I used to watch all the fishing shows on TV and in Darwin I even thought of booking a day tour to go fishing off the coast. The one thing that always prevented me from going fishing, is, that I didn’t really know how to prepare fresh fish, like gutting and preparing the fillets. And then of course you need to cook it somehow.

It was absolutely beautiful to take the boat on a sunny afternoon and cruise on the river, mangroves to the left and to the right, egrets and storks sitting on the sand banks, and of course, crocodiles. We didn’t see any this time, but apparently they’re very common and we saw crocodile tracks on the river banks where they like to rest. It’s really only a few minutes from where my house is but usually they don’t swim down that far.

About two minutes after we had stopped the boat at location and started fishing, I pulled an 80cm barra out of the water — apparently the biggest Frank and Graham had seen in a while. I thought it was pretty amazing and a lot of fun. Beginner’s luck I guess.

Soon later, Frank caught another one. Unfortunately, this was the last one we would get and Graham sadly missed out. We cruised up and down the river many times but didn’t catch any more fish.

On our way back we checked a couple of crab traps that Allan had put in a side arm of the river. We got a handful of mud crabs but most of the traps were empty since they didn’t have bait.

Cooking barramundi

At the moment I’m hosting two plumbers, Stephen and Nathan, at my house who were flown in from Darwin to install a new gas oven in the shop where I work. It turned out Stephen is a very experienced hobby fisherman and he explained me how to gut the barra and get the fillets out. It was a huge mess and the kitchen will probably smell like fish for the next days. But he then cooked the fillets on the BBQ with lemon and butter and it was among the tastiest fish I ever had. There’s such a difference between frozen fish fillets and a fresh one that has only just been caught. Delicious.

I’m not sure if the crab is really my thing but the fish was definitely great. I’m pretty keen to buy my own fishing gear now. At the moment it seems like the perfect life to me, to live in a remote place in the Northern Territory, far away from any rush hours, traffic or even just normal people. Sunshine every day, relaxed work, going fishing after work, BBQ for dinner, then spending a few hours doing client work on my MacBook before going to bed. I love it and I hope and can keep doing it for a few months.

By the way when I drove back into town from the boat ramp, I passed a large group of local Aborigines who were returning from a ceremony. At the moment there are many ceremonies held in Numbulwar — unfortunately I’m not allowed to attend, but I would love to one day. Some of the people were dressed very traditionally and their bodies and faces decorated with white paint, just like on many photos we’ve all seen. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to take photos of people in ceremony outfits some day, that would be fantastic.