Aaron arrived around 0830, and we loaded up for the almost 7 hour drive down to the bush camp.
Our first stop was at the 303 Bar at the Adelaide River Inn. Now this place is cool, monster croc mounted out front and the water buff from Crocodile Dundee lifesized inside.
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Sign using 303 brass, there was an enfield SMLE on either side. The beer was damn tasty!
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Of course the old man couldn’t resist a croc Dundee pose.lol
We headed on down to Katherine and had lunch and a couple of beers at the country club.
On to Aaron’s mates home to trade out vehicles, out of the comfortable SUV and into a land cruiser, now we got to be getting close!
We swapped vehicles and hooked up the trailer and were on our way!
We turned off the pavement and onto dirt for a spell then a right at the blue fuel drum onto a single track for the remainder of the Trip to camp. It was around 2 hours back in on the track and absolutely beautiful country. We arrived at camp and I was pleasantly surprised, though not as nice as many African bush tent camps, this was set up nicely. A damn site more amenities than most of the elk camps I’ve been in. Running water and hot shower by means of an elevated water tank and drum heated by a wood fire. Decent tents with a real mattress and clean linens. A nice permanent structure to eat meals and a campfire, all I need! We got settled in and unpacked then met at the dinner building for a good meal. Aaron’s girlfriend Mary spent the week with us and did a fine job cooking for us. Only once was there a dish that was not edible. I had a suspicion of what it was because of her Lebanese linage. Evidently Bob, Carol and Dad did not as they dished theirselves a big old helping of hummus!
I enjoyed watching them try to eat it, Dad was looking around for a stray dog so he could lick its butt to get the taste out of his mouth. Bob did not disappoint either by busting her chops on what the hell that dish actually was.
Day One of hunting(well kind of):
We woke to some of the most vile sounding birds that I have ever heard. They were damn sure more annoying than my alarm clock back home, actually thought about smuggling some back just for those mornings that are hard to roll out of the rack after an evening of MacCallen delicious excessiveness! You would get up regardless of your hangover just to kill the bird.
Now rolling out at the crack of dawn is not the norm around camp, breakfast was served around 8ish. This is where we got our first and last taste of Vegemite! For those that have not had the bad luck to try this stuff, consider yourself not missing a damn thing! We normally use this stuff to put on a sponge to catch catfish on. We all concurred that it was not fit for human consumption and threw it away. Bob threw his to the big camp dog and the dog looked at him with a I’m not eating that expression and walked away from it.
We finally rolled out, Dad and I with Aaron and Bob and Carol with Red, Aaron’s other guide.
We saw buffalo from the time we left camp to the point we broke the steering arm on the cruiser about 18 miles from camp. I was not at all surprised at all that we broke something, these boys make our idea of off road travel seem like a drive through Yellowstone Park. Running over trees and bushes up to 6” diameter is what they refer to as pushing into the bush. I would say it is more Ramming your way through it. Anyway we crawl up out of a river bottom and into a large tree, I was pretty sure there was a steering issue because Aaron was pretty skilled at running over trees. We made an attempt to field engineer our way out and it wasn’t happening. We backed under a shade tree and Aaron informed us he would walk to camp and be back in a few hours. Dad and I were quite certain that he was being very optimistic about his time frame. He grabbed his Sako 7-08 and backpack and off into the bush he went. We had plenty of food and water, a 375 and plenty of room to wander around. We made the best out of the situation and took a walk around. About 10:30 that night the radio came to life, it was Bob and Red to the rescue. We were planning sleeping out in the bush as soon as it got dark. We actually hoped that they would not risk trying to get us in the dark due to the terrain. We could hear trees crashing long before we could see the lights of reds cruiser. It was an interesting trip out, almost tipping over in a dry creek bed was a added bit of excitement. We got back to camp around midnight and could tell Aaron was whipped. He told us about the herd of Jenny’s that he walked into and was charged by a Jack donkey which he shot in the face to stop him. Much more exciting than our day! Bob had a great day but I will let him tell his story. Thanks Bob for coming to get us and remembering some cold 4X!
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Beautiful evening out in the bush
