Bag a Barra — 24 July 2020

You're listening to the camping and off road radio show. Broadcasting from the Northern Territory, thanks to tourism and team. Uh, yes, that's exactly right, as we broadcast here from the Free Spirit Resort in Darwin, and a fantastic spot, and we'll catch up with Laura, who is the marketing guru here at the Free Spirit Resort, and I've got to tell you, this place is incredible, as are all the caravan parks in the northern territory, and in particular in Darwin. But we find ourselves here and we'll talk to Laura about the benefits of this place.

And I've got to tell you now. Well, they call it a resort, and it's probably a good name for it. Although it is a caravan park, but unbelievable facilities here, including a poolside bar, which is fantastic, and believe it or not, might surprise you out there. I've actually been in there already. And not today, but since I've been here.

An unbelievable place, and we'll chat more about that as well. You can too, don't forget you can be a part of the program. Just send us an email, go to blue collar media.com.au, click on email the duck, if you want to be a part of it, or if you want any comments or any suggestions for us for the program, we certainly do welcome the feedback. bluecollarmedia.com.au and of course just click on email the duck.

Now, regular listeners of this program know that our man, Glenn Watty Wad, is our fishing guru and our Top End correspondent. Now, I've got to say, it would have been almost 12 months ago, I suppose, I'm not good at these things, but it was a fair while ago. He sent me an email and told me a bit about himself and about Barefoot Fishing Safaris, which is his business up here, and along with all the other fishing businesses up in Darwin, I absolutely give visitors to this area. Some great fishing experiences.

Anyway, so I've replied to the email, then gave him a call, and long story short, the rest you know, what he has become. a regular on our program every week. Well, I'm very happy to say that I'm sitting here with him, and for those of you like, I mean, over there, Peter Gordrey and Mackay, yes, we have had beers, Pete, you'll be happy to know that. We're probably going to have a few more over the next week or so.

But here he's here with me right now in our makeshift studio in Darwin. Wadi, welcome to the show, mate. Yeah, well, welcome to Darwin to you. It's beautiful in here, isn't it?

It was a bit cool this morning, but walking in here with a smell of bacon and eggs on the cookers and all the caravans is pretty mouth watering. Good place to be. Yeah, mate, I've got a tea. I need those bacon things this morning too, just quietly.

tied one on last night. But, mate, I've got to say to you, it was funny when I met you down at that workshop where you're doing your boat, your new boat, you're building the new boat, and you said, yeah, mate, good to meet you, but it was like already new year. Yeah, that's right. It's funny like that, and it's the same with a lot of clients that come up too.

They are in touch with me through Barefoot Facebook page or whatever a long time beforehand and you sort of feel like you do know them. So, yeah, it's that's the world we live in these days. good. Yeah, absolutely.

And we've spoke a lot before, like she came up because I've got a few tips off you and all that. So, mate, it was good, and the other night, for those of you, you wouldn't know. We actually had a feed at your place the other night and the lovely Louise. Yeah. What about... How good was the Rose Lane?

That was probably the 1st home cooked meal we've had in about almost a month. We're cooking ourselves here and we're cooking home meals, I guess, in the van. You've seen the setup, I have. A couple of kitchens, so we can, well, not so much, flash, but it's pretty practical, but no, it was good and it was a good night out there and just to get a gist of what life's like living up here, mate. But it is good to meet you in person and to have you sitting here doing the show with us today and get you to chime in here and there and talk about, you know, all things Top End. mate, it's certainly the lifestyle here.

Oh, by the way, mate, look, I know it's your 1st time here co-hasting. You didn't have to wear the suit, Watty. He's turned up with a shirt and die on, folks, which is amazing. I didn't think you'd, but the thongs.

I not sure about the thongs with the suit, buddy. Well, I got me good thongs on, mate. Yeah, they're going out with, they're going out thongs. And I'm only joking about the seat, folks.

But the one thing that the one thing that stands out for me up here, there's 2 things that stand out, apart from every, far from all the attractions and all the places you can visit and the places that are at your doorstep and your fingertips all the time, is the weather. That is the 1st thing that is just sticks out like anything. It's like, how good is the weather? But the fact that how people that are here are so climatized, they think it's cold. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. This time of year is when we get our sort of cool overnight lows and it is good for us as locals to feel a bit cool and be able to sort of pull a blanket up from time to time, but we do tend to whinge a fair bit about it too. Oh, mate, unbelievable. I mean, like the other night we're at your place and you're running for your jumpers and stuff.

I'm sitting there in shorts and TJ said it's freezing. I'm thinking, said to be Mississippi kidding, this bloke. And I mean, not only that, he had a fridge full of mid strength, believe it or not, folks, which was lucky I turned up. But, um, But I guess that does happen.

And I guess if I was here for an extended period and you go through a wet season and all the humidity and everything along with that, this time of year, to me would think, Jesus, I mean, even in the stores, in the shops, not that I do too many shops, but the missus, she wanted to hit the shops once we got here to get a couple of things. And there's all these winter, winter clothes. Yeah, that's who's going to buy that jumper? But it is, I guess it just, it's just the way it is.

But for people down south, this is the perfect time of here to be here. Oh, absolutely. Without a doubt, because it's much more comfortable for people who aren't acclimatised, for sure. It's when all the tourist attractions are open and the weather's perfect up here compared to down south where it's maybe not so good and not as much to do.

So, um, yeah, this is the perfect time and generally our peak season for the genuine tourist market. Yeah, absolutely. And like this place here. And it is to be, look, and in all fairness, it is to be quiet because obviously what's happening in around the place with the COVID and there's not too many Victorian number plates here made on vehicles at the moment, which is a real shame for our listeners in Victoria.

And my suggestion to people, you know, listening to us in Victoria and we do broadcast through there is, look, use this time to playing your trip here. If you're at home, jump on your computer, jump and get Google, you know, Northern Territory and plan a trip because it won't be forever, we'll get through this, it's just a speed up. bump over that. And then there's still plenty of time. to get up here.

But the one thing where people, you know, tend to shy away from the wet season. You're a fan of it. You're a fan of the wet season, you like it. And I know people like Mal Leylan, loves coming to the Top End during that period.

It's if you can handle a bit of humidity. It's actually not a bad place to eat too. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for locals, we tend to really love the wet season, number one, because there's not as many people around, but also it's just really displays that extreme environment that we live in.

So we go from everything being dry and essentially burnt through the dry season to, you know, you saw the dry grass out the back of my place, 6 foot high, and everything's lush and like a rainforest again. It just the country springs to life and gets everything happening again and and and it just reinvigorates the whole the whole town. I suppose the whole territory. Yeah, I've spoken to a couple of locals who say, you know, say, how do you handle the wet season?

Love it. That's their answer. Love it. So, but like we say, this time of year for people down south, if you want to escape winter, and even people over on the East Coast, you know, in New South Wales and Southeast Queensland.

Well, head here. It's just amazing. It's just like summer every day. The other thing that sticks out too is the lifestyle.

And the fact that it's even a little bit, it's like behind the times, and that's not being disrespectful, it's actually a good thing. It's just not as fast paced and it's not as politically correct as southern states and eastern states. It's actually pretty good. In fact, I think I'm one over here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the lifestyle is probably the main reason most of us continue to live here. you know, You either sort of, you enjoy it and fit in and stay forever or it doesn't fit with you and you move on to a thing.

But yeah, it's a, it's a great place to live. And like I say, you know, you can go out to dinner any night of the week. There's never a night that the weather's too bad to have a barbeque with some mates who someone turns up. So, yeah, it's a it's a great

It's a great way to live your life and raise a family, as you've seen. And yeah, I don't plan on leaving any time. Yeah, no, much brilliant. And last night we spent some time down on that waterfront and had a feed down there in one of the seafood restaurants there and just amazing, mate.

We're sitting there and there were dolphins swimming past in the harbour and at 1st at 1st I thought, haha, here we are. Big spot here and there was there was dolphins there and the fish. And then as it got dark or a cruise boat pulled up right beside where we were sitting, drops the spotlights onto the water, and they threw some bread or something over, and the size of the fish that were just, that just went straight to this boat was unbelievable. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. I mean, very lucky up here because we are still in a really true wilderness area, even though from where you were sitting, you would have been able to see the high rise buildings in the city and Qantas planes flying over your head and you've got, you know, essentially untouched wildlife right there. Yeah, he's incredible. Not many places in the world you can do. And then the sun sets, the sun sets up here are amazing.

I mean, we were out at Mindel markets at the sunset markets last weekend and unbelievable, just the, just the atmosphere, the people around, all the stalls, all the food, different food vendors that were there, the, you know, the people with their little market stalls. And I bought a DVD too, mate, by the way. Yeah, so you didn't break it out last night, did you? I didn't break it out loud.

Oh, mate, I'll take, look, look, I probably need a few lessons. But to put it mildly, mildly. But anyway, but just that. And then with the markets, when we, it's called the Sunset Markets, for obvious reasons, because it's right on the beach, and then everyone, right just on sunset, sort of moves from the market area, and the beach was just littered with people to watch that sunset over the beach, and we don't get that on the east coast.

Obviously. We get the sunrises, which are fantastic on the beach. I've seen 1000000s of those, but to get that sunset on the beach and the warm air and the warmth of the water and the one thing too, that people need to, with the northern territory, you mentioned that wild, it is a wild lifetime area. But it's not to be feared.

I mean, there were, I was surprised, as many would be. when they got to the beach there, there's lifeguards and people are swimming and things like that. And it's, it's not as if, you know, you know, don't be fearful of crocodiles, things like that. There are lifeguards there, and then as yet, it's like going...

I mean, look, it's no different when you go to a beach on the east coast and you've got to be mindful of sharks. It's that same sort of mentality, isn't it? Yeah, that's right. You just got to have your head screwed on a little bit and be sensible, but yeah, we're lucky in Darwin, particularly the peninsula curves around a bit, so there's not too many beaches.

You can't sit on and get every angle of sunrises and sunsets and that at Middle Beach facing west there with that warm sea breeze coming in in the afternoon. Oh, mate, beautiful. And the water temperature. And you're saying it's freezing?

Yeah, yeah. Well, water teams at the moment in the harbour are down to about 25, 26. which is cool for us, but it helps us, you know, feel the change in seasons and that sort of stuff like we spoke about. But it also, it brings on a different form of fish for us to target as well, the pelagic fish come in closer and that's what everyone's targeting.

What does the water temperature get up to in summer here? Are you in the harbour there? It might be 33,34. That's warm, mate.

Yeah, that is warm and that's another trigger point for. say Barra and Threadfin, which then use that water trigger to start thinking about spawning and that sort of thing. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, mate, unbelievable.

Now, we're off for a fish this weekend, which would be good. Corroborate Billabong. That's the plan. And then we're doing a Humpty-Doo pub lunch on the way home.

Yeah, yeah. Could be good. Yeah, we might have to make friends with that Uber driver of yours last night again. I've become big friend.

I've become very friendly with a couple of the Uber drivers here in Darwin and having a great time. There's plenty happening up here too over the next few weeks at the Darwin Cup, which is a lot of talk about that around the place. Yep. Ladies day was held recently and so yeah, that's a big event and then 2 rounds of the V8 supercars, which has never been done before.

Very exciting. Yeah, that's amazing. A lot of, and that's, that's the thing for you. People like to travel and get up to the, you know, travel to see the VH. Here's your chance.

Jump on a plane, come up here and come on, what's the V8s? And one thing we'll promote a little bit of on this while we're here as well as well. We talk a lot about travelling to the Northern Territory by road. But one thing you certainly can do is fly in and a fly drive holiday where you fly in higher a motor home and do it that way, and that way gives you more time here, and there's plenty of people doing that, even here now.

There's been a few of those little Apollos and different people. It's a great way to go. Absolutely. Because you can sort of take your camp with you, wherever you go, to Kakadu for a few days or out to Litchfield and that sort of thing.

And if you get a couple of pushbikes or something and do your smaller tracks and that sort of stuff as well and just do your hikes on foot. And yeah, it's a great way to go there and there'd be plenty of spare ones sitting around at the moment too. So they're probably offering some good rates, I would suggest. Yeah, that's the thing too, because it's not as busy as it would normally be this time of year here, obviously, because of the COVID-19 virus.

I think everyone's just about sick of hearing the words COVID-19 or coronavirus. They've done a great job up here in the northern territory to keep it curbed down to basically nothing. And hopefully it'll stay that way. I think at latest count, over 5000 people have crossed the borders with a caravan on or some sort of road traveller.

So hopefully, um, so hopefully the numbers will stay low. I noticed the one thing that sticks out as well here is that although you have no cases of it. And even when it was happening, it was still very low. Everybody's got, you know, the social distancing is on, the markers are on the floors in places, there's hand sanitiser everywhere, there are places you can't even eat, like the restaurant last night, you had to sanitise your hands before you went in and sat down.

So they take it very serious up here, don't they? Yeah, that's right. And I think that has been what has sort of helped us through it. There's probably other places that could have a bit of a look at the results that the territory's got and learn a bit from it.

But yeah, the issue is now for us as territorians and particularly our vulnerable communities, the elderly and the more remote communities where they don't have as much healthcare is just to make sure that everyone who's coming in is doing the right thing as well. We're all pretty schooled up on it, but we just need everyone else to toe the line as well and we'll be able to keep welcoming new visitors and guests into the territory every day. It's strange how, you know, Northern Territory, South Australia, and Western Australia have done a better job than the other than, you know, although Queensland hasn't done too bad either. And into some degree, ever as New South Wales.

I think maybe New South Wales probably should have closed their border to Victoria a week sooner than they did. But really, as they've done a great job in managing what is a problem we're not used to, an unprecedented problem. But in particular, up here, it's been no mucking around. This is what we're doing and you stick to this.

or there's going to be a drama. And some of them dramas are even jail time. He's not mucking around old gunners up here, is he? No, that's right.

Yeah, they are threatening jail time. I wouldn't expect it to get to that because we do have this really strong sense of community up here and everyone does tend to do the right thing anyway. So, yeah, we're very proud of what we've achieved so far and hopefully it continues and we can keep welcoming more visitors in. Yeah, and look, that's what we want to do.

Get yourself up here. Obviously, if you're crook or you feel any symptoms or think you may have, have the virus, don't come here, get tested, and make sure you're good to go, because like we said, we don't want to expose those remote communities, certainly don't want to do that, or anybody else either, for that matter. I notice I've seen people in parks quarantine. Basically, their vans are roped off, and the police are constantly checking them, that they're still there, that they haven't snuck up to the pool for a swim or up to the bar for a beer and things like that.

But yeah, if you can, we really would encourage you to get up here to the Northern Territory and experience this lifestyle that what he lives every day and what I'm living for the next month or so now. mate, what will we catch on Saturday on the weekend? Well, main target species in Crobery Billabong, like most of our Billabong systems is Barramundi in Saratoga. Barra being a bit tough in there this year, just due to a couple of factors that didn't sort of go their way during the year.

knew they were coming. I was on the way. Yeah, they must have known you were coming. But there's every chance of catching a couple as well as we always catch some Saratoga and Tarp on other things. And more than just the fishing, you know, it's a true, sort of the whole spirit experience in one out there.

Just the name of it, fantastic. Yeah, yeah, it's absolutely beautiful. And a billabong terminology can lead people astray a little bit. There's probably 60 kilometres of water that we can explore there.

So it's actually part of the main river system. So, yeah, it's a huge area and you can have 50 boats fishing it and not be on top of each other. Yeah, how good is that? We look forward to that. That's going to be an absolute ripper.

All right, Watty, you're going to hang around and chime in from time to time here on the show. today. It is good to see you here in our makeshift studio. It's not bad, is it?

Yeah, this is a beautiful spot. I mean, could you believe I had the brains to set this up? No, I can't actually. I thought you must have had a helper.

No, I know. Well, I've got one helper who's back in the studio, Nick, and he makes sure that it all works, and then obviously I've got Mrs. Ducky's over there. Hopefully, locking us up a couple of bacon egg rolls or something. But no, we have to set all this up.

We take this on the road everywhere. It's not bad. Yeah, it's a good way to work. a bit of wind in the background today, but that's just like a nice breeze.

Yeah, that's our cool southeasterly breeze we get this time of year and I whinge about it with fishing a little bit when it gets too strong, but yeah, it is very pleasant, isn't it?