Sunday October 16th saw us (Terry, Di, Sandra & I) up early and heading south on the Great Northern Highway again. Carol and Stephen stayed on an extra day to get their caravan suspension serviced. Loved our stay in Broome. It was a hot morning and when we stopped for morning tea along the way it was 42 degrees before 10am. No shade, so we cut short our tea break and got back on the road. Point Smith is about 24Km off the highway on an unsealed road. Road was fine but lots of red dust. We set up in the campsite in stinking hot weather but had some shade on our sites. You are not allowed to use your showers or washing machine at this caravan park but the ensuite amenities were spotless and not busy while we were there so not a real problem. The park is a short 1km drive to the Point Smith Lagoon. We took a drive there after lunch for high tide and were able to enjoy a nice swim. From there we took a 4WD track 8km east which took us to a cliff face on the ocean. It was beautiful and the waves were pounding into the cliff face creating huge sprays of water into the air. We had been told that it was good fishing at high tide. Terry reckoned it would be but unfortunately we couldn't get back to it because of bush fires in the area. More on that later.
We returned to the lagoon for another swim. The tide had gone out a bit so we had to walk out a way to get wet. Still very nice. Terry and I took a wander through the mangroves looking for mud crabs etc. No luck although I did managed to get a number of midgee or sand fly bites. We then returned to the caravan park and had a relaxing afternoon/evening trying to keep cool. No swimming pool so we all made multiple trips to the showers and kept the air conditioners running in the van. The pictures below show the difference between high and low tide in the Lagoon.
Monday morning we got up early and went out through the lagoon on low tide. We had to let the tyre pressure down and drove right through the area we had swam in the day before. We then continued on some distance over sand dunes to where the water went around a small island. The four of us all had a crack at fishing with the girls bringing some chairs to catch some sun. Sandra and I both caught some small Trevally, Cod, and Bream which we threw back. Terry caught a nice sized Snub Nosed Dart (Trevally like). Gave him a hell of a 15 minute fight and was around 5KG we reckon. Terry was worn out after so Sandra and I kept trying for a bit longer. Sandra had something BIG hit her line but broke it almost immediately. Damn! We had been warned several times by the office not to exceed 2 hours on either side of high tide. We left with about 30 minutes to spare and you could see why you wouldn't want to leave it too late. An area back near the lagoon where we came in was already filling with some water. No problem to make it through but could be very dangerous and expensive if you left it too late. We headed back to the caravan park and spent the next hour cleaning the fish, and our cars of salt and sand.
We had planned to return to the cliff face to fish but the lady from the office almost had a fit when she heard we had been out there the day before. Bad bush fires in the area and no one should be heading out to the cliffs (though it was another member of their staff who recommended it and gave us the directions!). Given the heavy smoke we now could see we decided to heed the advice and chose to return to Lagoon at high tide for another swim instead. A bit cooler today but it still felt really nice in the water. Had another relaxing afternoon and evening. We enjoyed Terry's fish for tea.
We tried to get a message through to Carol and Stephen to skip Point Smith and head straight to Eighty Mile Beach which is our next stop because of the fire and the heat. They must have got it because they didn't show up. We enjoyed our brief stay here and I believe it would be an outstanding location if you had a boat and were keen fishermen. Big variety of fishing opportunities with the Lagoon, Creeks, Ocean, and Cliff Face to explore at different tides.
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