An interesting trip to Townsville
Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 5:21 pm
G’day guys,
Last week I drove up to Townsville to collect wild guppies for my PhD and let’s just say it was an interesting trip. Not a lot went right, but in the end I collected the fish I needed, managed to sneak in a few hours fishing, and spent some quality time with my old man (he was my ‘research assistant’).
We started the drive last Monday at 6am and everything started off smoothly. The plan was to drive straight through with no breaks - my Dad would drive during the day while I slept (I have a talent for sleeping at will) while I would drive through the night. Barring any disasters, we would reach Townsville at around 1pm the next day, and have a few solid hours fishing before we started fieldwork the next morning. We passed a lot of beautiful scenery as we passed through central Victoria and central New South Wales:
And the first leg of the journey was completed without a hitch. But when I took over for the night drive at around 9pm, that all started to change. I quickly discovered why people don’t drive at night in these areas – suicidal kangaroos. I hit my first kangaroo about half an hour into the drive, smashing my indicator:
I hit my second twenty minutes later, which took out one of my headlights and put a serious dent in my front bumper. We considered stopping for the night but I was desperate to get to Townsville as quickly as possible so I could get a fish in before we started fieldwork, so I decided to continue at a more sedate pace, making a mental promise that I’d stop for the night if I hit one more kangaroo. Well the big man upstairs must have been on my side because despite countless near misses, I didn’t hit another one. However I did come within inches of two giant wild pigs that would have ended the trip pretty quickly.
At about 1 am we came to a roadblock – the road was closed due to flooding. We could either wait it out until morning, or find another route. Well I was already 2 red bulls and 2 coffees down by this stage so there was no way I was waiting it out, so I got on google maps and found an alternate route. It wasn’t much more than a dirt track, and a lot of it turned out to be under water, but it seemed to be heading in the right directing. The positive of all this water was there were frogs everywhere:
Unfortunately, there were also millions of these guys:
After annoying the sh!t out of my dad by stopping every twenty minutes to catch frogs, we eventually made it back to the main road. However now we had another problem – we were almost out of fuel, and still over 100km to the next town. So I jumped on google maps again and found a place called Banana that was about 50km away. It was touch and go, but we limped into town and thankfully found a truckstop. By this stage the sky had finally started to lighten, and a foggy morning emerged:
As the sun rose higher I thankfully gave the keys over to my dad, and we surveyed the damage to the car:
Not too bad all things considered, and it could have been a lot worse. By now we were in central Queensland and the scenery had changed from wheat fields and dry sclerophyll to endless sugar cane fields:
The last leg of the journey seemed to never end, but we eventually arrived at our hotel in Townsville at around 2pm (considering all the drama, we actually made pretty good time). All fatigue forgotten, I unpacked the car and rigged up the rods in record time, and we headed straight to the flats at the mouth of the Ross River. This is one of my favourite places to fish, despite the fact that I’ve lost a lot more fish here than I’ve caught (including several barra) but I was sure I’d make amends this time:
I tied on a hardbody while my Dad tied on a plastic, and second cast I was on! This was a good fish and it screamed off before pulling the hooks a few seconds later. I was shattered, but it was a promising start. Over the next hour or so we caught several flathead (they were eating everything we threw):
I love the tails on these northern flatties:
Last week I drove up to Townsville to collect wild guppies for my PhD and let’s just say it was an interesting trip. Not a lot went right, but in the end I collected the fish I needed, managed to sneak in a few hours fishing, and spent some quality time with my old man (he was my ‘research assistant’).
We started the drive last Monday at 6am and everything started off smoothly. The plan was to drive straight through with no breaks - my Dad would drive during the day while I slept (I have a talent for sleeping at will) while I would drive through the night. Barring any disasters, we would reach Townsville at around 1pm the next day, and have a few solid hours fishing before we started fieldwork the next morning. We passed a lot of beautiful scenery as we passed through central Victoria and central New South Wales:
And the first leg of the journey was completed without a hitch. But when I took over for the night drive at around 9pm, that all started to change. I quickly discovered why people don’t drive at night in these areas – suicidal kangaroos. I hit my first kangaroo about half an hour into the drive, smashing my indicator:
I hit my second twenty minutes later, which took out one of my headlights and put a serious dent in my front bumper. We considered stopping for the night but I was desperate to get to Townsville as quickly as possible so I could get a fish in before we started fieldwork, so I decided to continue at a more sedate pace, making a mental promise that I’d stop for the night if I hit one more kangaroo. Well the big man upstairs must have been on my side because despite countless near misses, I didn’t hit another one. However I did come within inches of two giant wild pigs that would have ended the trip pretty quickly.
At about 1 am we came to a roadblock – the road was closed due to flooding. We could either wait it out until morning, or find another route. Well I was already 2 red bulls and 2 coffees down by this stage so there was no way I was waiting it out, so I got on google maps and found an alternate route. It wasn’t much more than a dirt track, and a lot of it turned out to be under water, but it seemed to be heading in the right directing. The positive of all this water was there were frogs everywhere:
Unfortunately, there were also millions of these guys:
After annoying the sh!t out of my dad by stopping every twenty minutes to catch frogs, we eventually made it back to the main road. However now we had another problem – we were almost out of fuel, and still over 100km to the next town. So I jumped on google maps again and found a place called Banana that was about 50km away. It was touch and go, but we limped into town and thankfully found a truckstop. By this stage the sky had finally started to lighten, and a foggy morning emerged:
As the sun rose higher I thankfully gave the keys over to my dad, and we surveyed the damage to the car:
Not too bad all things considered, and it could have been a lot worse. By now we were in central Queensland and the scenery had changed from wheat fields and dry sclerophyll to endless sugar cane fields:
The last leg of the journey seemed to never end, but we eventually arrived at our hotel in Townsville at around 2pm (considering all the drama, we actually made pretty good time). All fatigue forgotten, I unpacked the car and rigged up the rods in record time, and we headed straight to the flats at the mouth of the Ross River. This is one of my favourite places to fish, despite the fact that I’ve lost a lot more fish here than I’ve caught (including several barra) but I was sure I’d make amends this time:
I tied on a hardbody while my Dad tied on a plastic, and second cast I was on! This was a good fish and it screamed off before pulling the hooks a few seconds later. I was shattered, but it was a promising start. Over the next hour or so we caught several flathead (they were eating everything we threw):
I love the tails on these northern flatties: