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Meeting up with the Katherine boys.

Drove that morning from Adelaide River to Katherine and met up with Claydog at his office. He was hard at work ... ha ha ... had a chat and after a while drove off to Pato's where Pato was drinking tea. Saw some of Pato's trophies. Then this time we were off to Claydog's house outside of town. Claydog wasn't going to join JB and I but was going to show us some spots that day. Loaned us his GPS which was especially useful as it did have a downloaded map so we could track our movements. Also loaned us his satphone, which is useful for emergencies. Some fishing tackle.

Drove to the property and dropped in to meet the owner. Then off to have a look around. JB travelled with Claydog in his Landcruiser. Claydog showed us some different spots, river systems, some suggested camping spots.

One of the small rivers on this cattle station. Good clean water, no saltwater crocs but certainly Johnson's crocodiles.

Checked the sighting of the .375 to make sure it was on target. Was shooting a little high.

JB goes forth. The first day we went for a hunt, yes during the heat of the day, but good to finally get out and have a look around. JB being a keen bow hunter carried a bow but also carried my .375 Whitworth M98.

We followed this river system for a few kilometres up river, interesting creek. Even though it is probably fine and no salties I never like entering deeper water and also Claydog advised us not too. Eventually found a spot to cross via an island in the river, using a palm tree trunk as a bit of a bridge. These palms do have very sharp leaves so avoided them. A crocodile splashed in the creek nearby. Heard this one and spotted another jumping quickly into the river. Only freshies. Hunted back South along the creek. Lots of cattle tracks, hard to tell inf any of them were buffalo. No pig tracks at all.

In the early evening drove out of the camp area to check three buffalo carcases someone else had shot to see if pigs were feeding on them. We did leave it a bit late, so didn't check them on foot, but no pigs could be spotted from the track.

Some cattle in the sunset light.

We put our camp up not right near the creek to avoid the cattle tracks. Luckily while we never saw any cows in the camp, these were behind us later, we did find droppings right in the camp some days when returning in the evening.

Even though it doesn't show, these areas are buffalo feeding areas. The recently burned off areas encourage new green growth which the buffalo feed on.

These forested areas are not bad to walk in the heat as they provide some shade and if a breeze blows it almost feels cool. We did have a lot of problems with wind direction on most days. The wind direction would change 180 degrees time and time and again.

A young bull buffalo feeding on the shoots of new green plants on the burned off ground.

We spotted this bull from the vehicle the first day. On this second day, we bumped into him and tried to circle him but he decided to run the same direction and eventually cleared off. Didn't see this bull again.

The property owner had said we could shoot any buffalo we saw. Talked this over with JB and we decided to try to get him a bull first. If you shoot everything you see, you often don't see any of the bigger bulls.

A close up of the bull. I didn't have my good telephoto lens for this trip as it has been misplaced and I couldn't find it. It will turn up eventually. A 8 meg image cuts back OK though.

Buffalo tracks in the sand.

We had made a bit of a mistake of where to walk in so did a bit of a loop to approach an area we were aiming for. A couple of extra kilometres or more of walking but did bump into the young bull. Set off in the new direction, about three or four kilometres to reach a spot where we had been told was permanent water and a herd of buffalo in that area.

The above photo shows an area of "dry" wetland, the palms from a distance give off a clue that water is in the area.

On the edge of some muddy wetlands. Buffalo tracks in this area AND a recent muddy wallow. No buffalo were spotted this evening but they were in the area, possibly even that midday. The swirling winds possibly had betrayed us on the approach.

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John aka NitroX

...
Govt get out of our lives NOW!
"I love the smell of cordite in the morning."
"A Sharp spear needs no polish"

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