Dundee Beach

Dundee Beach lies on the west coast of the Top End, about 136km southwest from our home in Darwin.

We tried to catch bait – Garfish are meant to be the best for sailfish – but didn’t have any luck so we had to buy some.

We also designed our own ‘witch doctor’, another teaser to raise the sailfish.

Preparations for the sail fishing trip went to smooth. The campground was booked, the boat and gear were ready, the weather forecast looked pretty good, and our friend had his flights booked. It’s a bit unusual for us to be ready, packed and organised well and truly in time.

That wasn’t enough, in the morning we got up hopped in the car, only to notice the windscreen had been smashed! No, not a break-in attempt, simply a nut from the Mahagony tree on our campsite. They act like a baseball when they fall down.

Taped the cracks, reported to insurance and on our merry way we were collecting our friend from the airport who was joining us for this adventure.

No further issues until we arrived at Dundee Beach, set up our new mozzie dome and got ready to rig up the Garfish (we call them ‘Gardies’) with sinkers and wire. Umm… the wire stayed at home!

We’re good at improvising, so we stripped a power cord and used its wire instead.

Early in the morning we headed out to one of the spots that are known for Sailfish. The weather wasn’t great and we didn’t last too long in the rather wavy and windy conditions and went crabbing in the creek instead.

The following day the weather was slightly better and we tried again. I swear I saw a sail, unfortunately not chasing our teasers or bait.

The third day was supposed to be perfect fishing weather with barely any wind. Turned out to be the worst of all three days. Despite giving it another crack, the waves got the better of us. This time my partner spotted a sail, again, not chasing us. There was a lot of wildlife out and about that day though. We saw plenty of turtles, a sea snake, dolphins and schools of fish as well as flocks of birds.

We got some good crabs, and ate some on the boat the next day. The last lot was lunch before our friend had to head home.

One float (tied to a rope to the crab pot) vanished before our eyes only to pop up again a few metres further. We think a croc grabbed the pot and then dropped it again, but who knows what happened.

Driving into the creek, we saw thousands of jellyfish, pretty amazing.

Of course we also spent a night at the new (opened late 2023) Dundee Tavern, which replaced the old Dundee Lodge. It’s a very nice, spacious pub with decent food and a good vibe. There is a splash park for the kids and a pool table.

Then it was already time to pack up and head home. We were very disappointed not having had any sailfish behind our boat all week. We had a great time being out on the water and catching up with our mate!

Not too sure what the next blog will be about, will be going back in time again I think…

Explored in August 2025, written August 2025