Once we were back from Straddy and had shaken most of the sand out of our tennies, it was time to make a run back to Eumundi for a Christmas farewell with the Falcos. Fay, Peter and Scott had come down from Cairns to have Christmas with Primo and we all got together for a wonderful lunch prepared by Chef Primo and assistant Fay. According to "Plan A", we won’t be back in this part of Australia for the rest of our trip, so it was a difficult goodbye to these wonderful people who have done so much for us during our planning and stay in Queensland. Their generosity and hospitality will always be a high water mark in our trip!
We were fortunate to be surrounded by friends during our Christmas away from home. Heather and the Banks’ welcomed us into their homes like we were family, and we truly felt that we were. Of course, we missed everyone back in the US, but we couldn’t have asked for a warmer welcome here. One of the Banks’ Christmas traditions is to put on a mud crab and sea food feed for Christmas dinner. No store bought crabs this time! Every year, Don goes out into the mangrove swamps and catches mud crabs for the family. If this sounds tame, let me enlighten you a bit. This is what a mud crab looks like.
That claw can break a toe through a thick leather boot in less time than it takes to say "What the .....!!!!" The technique is to take a small tinny out into the mangrove swamp along one of the larger rivers during high tide... at night...wade through the mangrove swamp in thigh deep water pulling the boat along behind....shine a spot light into the water to locate the crabs.... and scoop them up with a standard, long handled scoop net, all the while avoiding the sharks, sting rays, and poisonous sea snakes that also inhabit these swamps at night. Of course, if you happen to miss seeing a crab in the mud in front of you and accidently step on it, a permanent pedicure will commence immediately!
I had been invited to attend this dance the year before and agreed to participate despite knowing the conditions - a body can promise to do almost anything that far in advance! So it was set, and late one evening after dinner, Don and I took off to collect the family’s Christmas dinner. The weather was great - not too hot and no moon - but due to an unusual position of the moon, the tide was highest that been in 125 yrs! That meant that Don’s usual hunting grounds were flooded in chest deep water instead of thigh deep and the spot lights wouldn’t penetrate deep enough to see the bottom, so we’d be walking around blind - not good! However, the flooded condition also opened up other areas that were not usually available to hunt, and Don’s knowledge of the area payed off. We did have a few tense moments when the bottom dropped away and we ended up chest deep in a creek bed with no view of where we were about to step, but all in all it was great fun! We took turns holding the light for each other while Don or I tried our hand at getting the net over a crab scurrying along the bottom toward deep water. Once in the net and out of the water, we had to undertake the tricky business of determining whether it was legal size, identifying the crab’s sex (females must be released in Queensland), and getting the cranky crab out of the net without losing any digits while standing in waist deep, fangy critter infested, swamp water by the light of a hand held spot light - what fun!! I think that this was one of the best times I’ve had since arriving in Oz - a true hunting experience!! By midnight we’d collected enough crabs for dinner. The battery that ran the lights was starting to go dead on us making it harder to see what we were doing, so we figured it was time to get out of the water. Those crabs, along with pawns, oysters and salads made a delectable Christmas dinner!
The day before Christmas we invited our good friends, Ian and Therese, over to the Banks’ Southport house for good, old fashioned chicken fajitas. Helen arrived from Sydney just before dinner started, so we all had a great time! We’re going to miss seeing Ian and Therese on the rest of our journey, unless, of course they join us along the way, but they’re great about keeping in touch with us on the internet. Wonderful people!
Dan played elf on Christmas morning, handing all sorts of goodies to everyone, and we all had a great day, culminating in the grand crab and seafood dinner!
After resting up for a day, it was time to hit the road again. We made our farewells to yet another great bunch of people, the Banks’ ( how will we ever repay all the kindnesses shown to us on this trip?!) and dropped Heather off at the airport on our way out of town. In accordance with a prearranged plan, we met up with the gang of Heather’s old school chums and their friends that we’d encountered quite by accident during our travels on the Cape York Peninsula last August. There were Lorraine and Peter, Pat and Narelle, and Lynn and Ray. We spent a delightful hour or so in the airport lounge enjoying their company before sending Heather off to Sydney by air.
Then it was off to Sydney in the Troopy for Karen, Helen and myself, but not before stopping off at Byron Bay, the most eastern point in Australia for this photo.
Yes, it was raining, again. Everywhere we go people say "Gee, this is the wettest it’s been in 50 years!". We’re thinking of hiring ourselves out to go to the drought stricken places in Australia as rain makers!