Augusta
Just before I get to writing about Augusta, I thought I'd fill you in on my new 4wd situation. I got it inspected yesterday and the dude messaged me within half an hour to say it was done. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it! Hallelujah! Such a steal! Legitimately could not be more stoked! Road trips, here I come!
Located about half an hour South of Margaret River, Augusta is the cutest little holiday town on the coast. Dad and his partner have been going to this same old, huge, holiday house every long weekend for years. It's a bit creepy but it has the best view of the ocean! As the restrictions were eased a little, we were able to head there for a few nights. We spent the weekend relaxing, walking on the beach, playing board games and fishing. SO much fishing!
Riley is the biggest fishaholic I've ever met and he just couldn't get enough. Apparently I'm a bully and ruined his whole entire life because I didn't want to stay out all night in the cold fishing. We'd only been out for about ten hours that day and it clearly wasn't enough. We'd actually been so lucky too!
We'd spent the day at Hamelin Bay (the most beautiful beach!) and each had a rod to fish with. The fishermen/women were out in force as there were lots of talks of salmon schools floating about. Dad's rod had the live bait on it that we caught so we were hoping that he would be the one to catch one. When walking miles to find a spot to social distance, we saw one guy who'd caught a salmon earlier in the morning so we knew we had a chance. After a few hours, we'd caught heaps of sand whiting, skippy and herring but no one else on the beach had caught a salmon yet. The pros had said they'd seen the school though and they were coming. As soon as the school started (slowly) swimming past, the fisherpeople went mad running down the beach towards them and trying to cast right in front of the school. Dad didn't bother trying and just left his rod out and hoped for the best. They swam right past us. One guy was insanely good and landed right on the school every time but they weren't biting. Then one guy rowed out with his cute little rowing boat and circled them all with his net. That was it. He'd caught the whole entire school. It seemed so wrong. Thankfully, whilst they were trying frantically to pull them in, the net got snagged on a rock and most of them swam free. Then just as everyone was giving up to go home, the drag on dads line started to go out. He'd caught one! Salmon for dinner! Wooh!
Later that night, we went fishing at the marina. It's apparently one of the only marinas that is built directly into the open ocean rather than a bay so the fishing there is so good! Check out this fish dad caught there once! Dad had prepared about five fishing rods and five hand lines for the three of us. We had to catch live bait for the hand lines and one of the rods as they had the the thickest line and biggest hooks on them ever. Riley and I caught heaps of different little fish and all the lines were out. After a few hours at about 10pm, and when I was getting sick of it, the rod with the live bait started taking drag. I ran to grab it, tightened the drag a little and it practically nearly pulled me in. I had to use my entire weight to hold it and it was still pulling and taking the drag out. I'd start to make a little bit of ground on it but then it would take off again seemingly with more strength than before. It got the line tangled around some of the pylons so we just had to leave it and hope that it untangled itself. It eventually, miraculously did so Riley had a go and it was just as strong as before. Then the line snapped! Dad thinks it must have been a shark because he'd never felt anything as strong as that before.