My girlfriend and I just got back from a two month
trip to New Zealand and Australia. You may ask how
does one take two months off for vacation well the
answer is simple Credit Cards Baby with no interest tell 2008!!!
We both just finished graduate school and have no jobs
so we figured what the hell.
Took me all day to put this together hope you enjoy
On this trip I brought three travel rods of various strength
all made by Ocean Master (get on basspro shops.
These were the only heavy duty 3 piece rods that I
found cheap. I highly recommend these travel rods
I had no problem catching 15 lb yellowtail and 20 lb GT’s
with them (most travel rods would have busted).
Anyways I tried to keep this post short (yea Right).
I got to do a fair amount of fishing but a lot of the places
were like “you should have been here yesterday” or the
weather did not cooperate it was Late winter / early spring
there which is the time of year to go to Australia (no rain and
not deathly hot) but New Zealand was cold some
days ie I got to go snow boarding there.
We started the trip at the bay of islands on the North Island
of NZ. We basically had the place to ourselves and it was
beautiful clear water and nice beaches. The only problem
the Kingies or Yellowtail had not been around for weeks.
Oh what the hell Chartered Steve on the Earl Grey to go
hunt New Zealand Yellowtail. Most NZ charters troll fish this guy
was great he catches live bait and fishes SoCal live bait style.
Sunrise Bay of Islands style
Here is a pic of the Earl Grey
The arches on the way out to the high spots
Now the thing to remember is no one had caught
any yellowtail for weeks I am like fuck came all the
way over here to catch the infamous New Zealand
Yellowtail and wouldn’t ya know Steve puts on the fish
nothing big but I am Happy
I have now caught YellowTail off two continents!
Rachel with her first ever Yellowtail
New Zealand Barracuda weird thing
All in all we caught 11 Yellowtail 10 – 20 lbs and 13 Barracuda
If we were there in summer it would have been 20 – 60 lb Yellowtail oh well
It was awesome anyway.
Trout Fishing in Toupo
We did not get to do anymore fishing in NZ as it was not
Worth the price to go bottom fishing for snapper. We
Stayed on the North Island of NZ because we only had 12 days there
Went to a rugby game in Aukland which cool. I also got to
go Snow Boarding on Whakapapa (pronounced Fuc a papa) mountain
in August which was epic
You can see Mordor from Lord of the Rings in the Background
We Left NZ and flew to Perth in Southwestern Australia
The plan from here was to rent a 4 wheel drive and drive up the
west coast to Broome a 4000 kilometer trip fishing, camping,
and diving the whole way for the next 24 days.
We started in Augusta were the Indian and Southern Ocean meet
from here headed North to the Pinnacles Desert A cool place
looks like the moon
Found this guy along the way
cool blue tongue
Tried fishing the beaches at Kalbbarri North of Perth but
the waves were not cooperating
Our first real fishing spot of the trip was Ningaloo Reef in the
Cape Range National Park at Exmouth. This place rivals the
Great Barrier Reef. I think it is even better because 5 feet from
the beach is the Reef with better coral than the East Coast
were the only way to get to the Great Barrier Reef is to spend
200.00 to hire a boat.
Here are some sub tidal reef pics:
Gar fish
A 3 foot potato cod
Snappa
black tip reef fish
Some dart super fun on light tackle
This place had endless beaches, flats, and reefs to fish with
tons of toothy critters to catch
Me on the flats at sunset
One of the problems here is that I could only get the fish
to bite on 10 lb test with 20 lb fluorocarbon leader this
was fun but most fish take you right to reef and bust you
off must have donated 30 poppers, spoons, and softplastic
to the reef. Here is one example of the fish to be caught off
the reef a gold spot Trevally, other catches included various
other trevally species, cod, longtom (needle fish), queenies,
dart, and snapper all 1 lb – 4 lbs
Rachel with a pretty Wrasse
A small snook
Had this guy crawl through camp one morning
Driving obstacles along the way
Spiny creature called an echidna
oops forgot to put out the campfire
Went inland to Karrinjini National Park which was a series
of Gorges. One of the most beautiful places I have ever been
100 foot walls composed of layers of blue, purple and red
sediment with water flowing into pool after water fall after
pool after water fall with great swimming holes. You had to
climb along walls and treverse water falls to get to them but
well worth it. Pics do not do it justice
Rachel scaling the wall
Next we went North to Broome. Here we had the best fishing
of the trip.
Here a nice 20-30 lb gold spot trevally
Heres a 10 -15 lb Giant Trevally
Another gold spot
A huge 40 – 50 lb Gold Spot Trevally see the foot for size ref
Toothy Cod: The Aussies consider this guy bad luck to catch
Nice Blue spot snapper caught about 12 of these
One of the most prized Aussie Table Fish a Red Emperor
Rachel with hers
Black tip Reef fish
From Broome we flew to Darwin were there are Giant Termite hills
This thing was 16 feet tall
and on to Alice Spings were we went to climb Ayers Rock
This was the beginning of the climb only the first 1/5
Took us 2 ½ hours to the top and back some areas are at a
70 degree angle to climb
Next we flew to Cairns on the east coast to see the Rain forest
And do some estuary fishing
Mangrove Jack
Finger spot jack
Definitely no shore fishing hear
And you think seals are a hazard
Rachel with an odd catch a thing called a hair tail. Normally
these live thousands of feet deep they come up the river to spawn
caught a lot of these weird guy’s
I could have posted a thousand pics I tried to pick the best
we hope you enjoyed the post we had an amazing time
New Zealand and Australia 
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