Fish, Funds and Family Fun!

In Alice Springs we can buy the seafood listed below at the supermarket on a regular basis. I tend not to buy it though because it seems odd even after 5 years in Alice to buy fish when you live so far from the ocean.

What has the fish had to go through to get here? There is a local butcher who often has fresh seafood, and from all accounts it’s lovely, but I just can’t justify the price per kilo for the quantity we would need for a meal.

$32.50 per kg Imported Salmon

$26 per kg Aussie ocean barramundi

$10.50 per kg frozen imported basa fillets

$16 per kg imported barramundi fillet

Wallaroo Jetty

We have been fishing while on holidays and spent a small fortune buying crab pots, hand lines and bait. Initially we discussed not buying crab pots, but decided to outlay the money for them because we knew even catching small ones that were being returned to the water was still fun for the kids. Catching something was better than catching nothing.

Up to this point most of the fishing the kids have done has been in Murray River. Catching and disposing of carp.

Grandma and Grandads houseboat Morgan SA

You can’t put a dollar value on the fun they’ve had trying to catch fish, squid and crabs. Or a dollar value on the memories, family time and bonding that has happened, but we’ve joked along the way that with the money we’ve spent on trying to catch fish it would have been cheaper to buy some.

We managed to catch about 6 legal blue swimmer crabs over a couple days. Alex caught a squid. Mickalee wound up a lost crab pot. Darcy and Alex caught a couple of “shitties”?? Not sure about the actual name and Me….. a lost squid jig.

Blue swimmer crab

Squid caught by Alex

So seeing as we hadn’t been super successful I went to Drakes foodland here at Wallaroo and priced up the fish.

$25 per kg local flake

$53 per kg local garfish

$40 per kilo local snapper

$48 per kilo local whiting

$50 per kilo local flathead.

It all looked fab, and the prices were on par with everyone else but for a meal for all of us with salad and chips I would need at least 4kg of fish, which I just couldn’t justify.

We ended up having the crabs as entree, enough for everyone to have a taste and I bought 5kg of chicken drumsticks for less than 1kg of fish.

Cooked blue swimmer crab

Marinated chicken drumsticks

If we were relying on our fishing abilities for survival, we wouldn’t last long. We did however achieve what we set out to do. Spend time with the kids, have some fun and make some memories! In 20 years time, ask them about the beach ball at Wallaroo and they should laugh. That however is a story for another day.

We head home soon, back to the heat and back to work. Let’s maybe start saving for a beach house of our own. Which beach though? As it’s stands Alice Springs is pretty central to ALL of them. 🤷🏼‍♀️😜

Bye

Bec