The Sign On Our Door Says "Gone Fishin"

Monday 21st May, 2012

This past weekend we had arranged to go to Stansbury, on Yorke Peninsula, about a two and a half hour drive from Adelaide.

Robyn and Bob had booked a cabin in the local caravan park and had invited us to come over and spend the weekend.  As it was the weekend we had Katie, she was excited to be going as well.

Friday afternoon I went and met Katie, and then we went and got Tony from work and headed off.  We got a good run out of the city.  We stopped at Port Wakefield for a bite to eat for dinner and then off to Stansbury.  Last year we went to Ardrossan, but Stansbury is further down the Peninsula.  We arrived there around 7.30pm.

Robyn and Bob were there to meet us at the gates as we had to have our own pass number to enter the park.  The cabin was quite comfortable, this one had a separate bedroom with two bunk beds in it.

Katie was very happy, right outside the cabin was a playground.  She wasted no time in going out to it and before long she had several other kids with which to play.

view from the front door of the cabin

Luckily Robyn had brought spare jammies with her.  Katie was too hot wearing her pj's, from all the playing, so Robyn gave her one of her nighties.

During the night there were these weird noises.  They sounded like someone was walking around inside the cabin and then there was, what sounded to me, the noise of rope on a deck of a boat being curled.  The noises came from the corner of the bedroom in which we were sleeping, right where my head was.

Robyn and Bob also heard these noises and Bob said that at one stage he got up and went outside to investigate but nothing was there.  I think we had a ghost.

Saturday morning, after breakfast, we went down to the jetty and tried our hand at catching some squid.  Robyn showed Tony and Katie how it was done.  No sooner had Robyn put her line in and she had a squid on it.

Katie was happy, she could at least get to karate chop it for it to change colour.  That was the only thing we caught.  Tony had lots of bites on his fish but couldn't keep the squid on there long enough for him to pull one in.

We went back to the cabin and had soup for lunch.  Bob had made some before they left home.  It was yummy and warmed us up before our next fishing adventure. 

In the afternoon we went to Port Vincent, about 17kms from Stansbury.  Here we fished from the beach in the hope of getting some mullet.  Tony caught a mullet and a nice size tommy ruff, Bob caught a nice size tommy ruff, and Katie caught 2 small trumpeters.  Tony and Bob also caught heaps of trumpeters.  They are referred to as 'shitties'.

Robyn didn't fish.  She helped Katie and showed her how to put bait on the fish hooks and to remove the fish from the hooks.  Katie is now the experienced fisherwoman.  She was excited to catch her fish even though they weren't very big.

The first one she caught, she put in the bucket as she wanted to keep it.  With all the others that were caught she was happy playing with them, giving them a burial. digging them up and feeding them to the sea eagles and seagulls.

Once the tide started to go back out we packed up and called it a day.  We went back to Stansbury, tidied ourselves up and went to the local hotel for dinner.

Everytime we were at the cabin, Katie was on the playground with her new found "friends".   That night we didn't hear any strange noises while we were in bed.  Maybe the 'ghost' was happy with us staying there.

Sunday morning Tony and Bob cooked us bacon and eggs for breakfast and while they were doing that I started packing up our gear. 

After breakfast we took a drive down to Wool Bay, Coobowie and Edithburgh.  Yorke Peninsula is shaped like a boot and Edithburgh would be on the 'heel'.

We had a bit of lunch at Edithburgh, came back to Coobowie for Katie to have a play on the playground there and then back to the cabin to pack up the car and get ready to head off back to Adelaide.

We left Stansbury just before 3.00pm and got back to Adelaide around 5.30pm.  Dropped Katie off and then came home.  We had a fantastic weekend.  On the way home Katie told Poppa to turn around and said "let's go back".  She said she had the best weekend and in the morning had told us that she didn't want to go home.

Robyn and Bob are staying on until Wednesday when they will return home.  Let's hope they catch lots of fish.