A Conundrum

Why did the chicken cross the road?

We still don't know the answer, even though we witnessed the crossing!

Orange-footed Scrub Fowl crossing the road at Gove Harbour.

We Left Port Essington on 18 Sept, heading for Gove Harbour.  The Great White Hunter decreased the population of Spanish Mackerel once again after leaving Port Essington.  His trusty assistant suggested that this looked a likely place to catch a fish and it was. 

Hmmm, where to put it.  It might be that we haven't finished eating the last two mackerel yet.  Time to re-organize the freezer, put the rod in moth balls for a while and eat more.

The first two nights found anchorage at Croker Island and Malay Bay which are along the north coast of Arnhem  Land.  Interesting country but you need a permit from the Northern Land Council which is the authority for indigenous affairs in this area.  We didn't have one.

From there  we had a long stretch of three days and two nights before the next anchorage which would be at Elcho Island.  Favourable winds  would have got us there sooner but easterly winds meant a lot of zig-zagging and straight into the oncoming swell.

It was slow going with a lot of dramatic waves breaking over the bow.  

I went below to make a cup of tea.  Winkali was heeled over on the zig and as I was eyeing off the floor to see where the best spot would be to find a secure foothold, I noticed a thin line of water lying along the junction of the floor and wall.  

I lifted the floor boards to see what was happening in the bilge.  This caused me to inform Ian that there seemed to be quite a lot of water in there.

Panic! ! !  Where was it coming from?  Were we going to sink?  What to do if we were going to sink and what to grab?

Lucky I knew all the answers to this because I had just finished reading a book where the family yacht had sunk off the Galapagos Islands and they had to survive in their raft, then dinghy when the raft sank, for thirty eight days.  They lived mainly off turtle and drank turtle blood when water was scarce.

If we sank, we were going to do it easy because I was more than ready to grab the food and water and I would have even saved the lollies.

Ian tracked down the source of the water and found it was coming through the   hawse pipe (anchor chain hole) on the bow of the boat.  Crashing headlong into the waves put a lot of pressure on our usually functional chain cover and the excess water found its way into the anchor locker, under our bunk (giving our bedding a good soaking), into the locker where we keep our computers and into the bilge.  

The next couple of hours were devoted to pumping out the water, stripping the bunk, organizing our bed to dry out and finding out whether the computers had survived.

There were three laptops and one printer in the flooded locker.  The printer and Ian's old laptop which he had used for his work were write offs.  Lucky our other two laptops were on top and still dry.  They have all our photos on them.

We got to Elcho Island on 23 Sept exhausted and had a full night's sleep - luxury!

The next day was spent drying out the boat and sorting out ruined computer stuff.  

There is a township on Elcho Island called Galiwin'ku.  As we had internet and phone reception, we were able to research the area where we were and found that Galiwin'ku is the second largest indigenous community in the Northern Territory. They boast an Arts and Crafts centre in a modern building.  Also, it is the home of the famous Galiwin'ku Chooky dancers who sky-rocketed to fame when they appeared on U tube doing their rendition of Zorba The Greek.

Locals getting ready for a bit of  (non) fishing.

We watched these locals spend some time sharpening this over-sized spear.  When they were happy with it , they put it away and drove off. . . . as you do!









This island was worth visiting so we upped anchor and moved to the bay adjacent to the township.  I made a call to the council office to see if we could get permission to come ashore.

The authority in charge was out of the office at the time and I was told that they would ring back in half an hour.  I was also informed that there was a 5 meter crocodile in the area that had been giving them trouble lately but we should be ok.  It had taken a dog the night before.  I suppose that meant it wouldn't be hungry that day.

During our wait for the phone call,  we considered our fragile inflatable dinghy.  There was a fine line between inflated and deflated and crocodiles are experts at deflation.  

The phone call we were waiting for took sufficient time for us to weigh up the risk involved.  We changed our minds about visiting.

Also, the timing was right (with tides) for passage through Cadell Straits which runs between the bottom of Elcho Island and the mainland.

Ian concentrates on getting us through Cadell straits safely

The straits are tricky as the channel is narrow and there are shifting sandbanks.  The water was extremely turbulent where the channel narrowed, almost creating whirlpools at times.  









That night anchorage was at Inglis Island which is part of the English Company Islands south of the Wessels.  (Ian thinks it was named after Greg Inglis, South Sydney Rabbitoh's full-back).

The land was changing.  Flat sandy coast was replaced by hills and valleys.  Large trees had replaced scrub.  Monsoonal forest was now dominant.

Next night was Astel Island.  This was only a short sail from Inglis so we still had lots of time to go ashore.  Our map showed us that this didn't belong to Arnhem Land so we didn't need permission.

We took a crab pot and a tin of cat food which is apparently the best bait for crabs.  The beach looked croc free.  We found a suitable corner of the beach where there was some rocks and likely to be crabs.  Ian opened the cat food and the rich odour of sardines wafted through the air.  I could almost see the crabs clambering over each other to get to the cat food first.

Then . . . .  Ian saw a croc cruising the rocks.  The crab pot was folded up again, cat food disposed of at the other end of the beach and thoughts of crab for supper dismissed.

Time for photos.  The bay was full of birds, mainly congregated in one small corner.  Bowerbirds, Beach Stone-curlews, Honeyeaters and ? ? ? some other bird sneaking up over the rocks. 

"What's that?" asked Ian.
It was about the size of a Scrub Fowl.  After looking it up in the bird book it turned out to be a Chestnut Rail of which not a real lot is known about because of difficulty of access to their habitat.

Ian got a bad photo of it which was better than my no-photo.

The rocks in this area are as unusual as any we have seen along this whole top end.

A large piece of coral with its fragile honeycomb structure, at home amongst the other sandstone sculptures.




These brightly coloured flowers were popular with the Honey-eaters.

Me standing amidst some very nice pandanus.

If we couldn't eat them, we could still photograph them.

Then it was on to Gove Harbour via Cape Wilburforce. Working with the right tides is of utmost importance in this area because if you get it wrong, you can expect to be going backwards in the rip.  The country and coastline is spectacular in this area.  It came to us as serendipity as it was every bit as good as we could have hoped the Kimberleys to be
Landscape now became soaring cliffs.  Mile after craggy mile.  Islands were carved and sculpted.  

Cotton Island - largest of the English Company Is group.

Entry to Gove Harbour

Gove Harbour bauxite refinery on the right, tropical island on the left.  Not something you would see too often.  The refinery was visible on the horizon from about 10 miles away.

Gove Harbour anchorage taken from boat club.

Blue-winged Kookaburra

Little Corella

Trees at the boat club car-park provided great nesting holes for the feathered locals.