A Kimberley & Pilbara Adventure: McGowans Island

Camp at McGowans Island - Kalumburu

5th to 8th June 2012

We spent five nights at McGowans Island. Most of our days were spent fishing. Everybody would go out in the boat in the morning and return to camp for lunch. Only the diehard fisher persons would head back out in the afternoon. We caught some amazing fish. It was pretty cool to see metre plus queenies and trevaly swimming around the boat.

The kids in their driftwood teepee's

Everyone caught awesome fish and it was so much fun hooking up and getting the fish to the boat. We had two run ins with some Barracuda. Chris ended up with a hook in the finger and I was unlucky enough to have a Barracuda jump into my lap and embed two lure hooks into my thumb. The kids made their own fishing rods from sticks, line and some lures they got in their RecFishWest goodie bag and actually caught fish on them.

McGowans Island - Kalumburu

View of camp from the boat

There are hermit crabs everywhere here and the kids played with them for hours every day; making them houses and having hermit crab races. For at least three nights during our stay, a fellow camper let off fireworks on the beach. We walked along the rocky foreshore and the kids made teepee's out of driftwood. Every evening was spent around the fire watching the sun sink into the sea and then the millions of stars twinkle into life.

Sunset McGowans Island - Kalumburu

There are some cool spiders in the grass which are not much bigger than a fifty cent coin and when you shine a torch on them at night, their eyes twinkle blue, green and silver. On most days out in the boat, we were lucky enough to see Snubfin Dolphins, the Kimberley's very own dolphin which is found nowhere else in the world and in very few numbers. It was definitely hard work on the car to get to and from Kalumburu, but the fishing was absolutely awesome and the location beautiful, so it was well worth the effort.