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Birri Fishing Resort

Birri Fishing Resort is situated on the northern shoreline of Mornington Island. The resort is set in tropical surroundings, with all accommodation in twin share rooms with ensuites and airconditioning and are serviced daily. Your washing is done for you on specified days during your stay. Meals are restaurant quality from the kitchen at Birri and served in the shady open air dining area. Some days all day is spent fishing with trips out to the Islands to the north in Birri's all metal V8 inboard powered ocean going craft. These craft carry a full range of safety equipment including GPS navigation, depth sounders, ship to shore radio and EPIRBS. The number of guests fishing is limited to 10 between two boats per week to allow plenty of room onboard. Other days are divided into morning and afternoon sorties with lunch at the resort. All fishing gear, eskies, sunscreen is supplied.

Fishing varies from trawling for Mackerel, Tuna, Cobia (Black King Fish), Queenfish, Salmon, Giant Herring, Giant Trevally and a large variety of other fish, or fishing the reefs for bottom fish, Red Emperor, Sweetlip, Coral Trout, Parrot Fish, and Cod. The rivers are also fished, especially at this time of the year for Barramundi, Mangrove Jack, and on one day the crab pots are put in and always plenty of crabs are caught for a crab banquet.

During the prawning season, prawn trawlers often visit the Bay at Birri and a tour over these and the mother ships who deliver their supplies of fuel, food and water and refrigerate their catches is often available with courtesy of the Captains. A ready supply of prawns is always available on the dinner table at Birri. Non fish eating guests are also catered for.

Mornington Island is an alcohol free zone, therefore you cannot take any alcohol to the Island with you. However the bar at Birri will provide all your needs at reasonable prices.

Stawell Aviation usually travel with one aircraft with two seats removed which enables us to bring home the frozen catch. Your fish are filleted by the skippers, packed in plastic bags and frozen and on departure packed and sealed in styrene containers. These are all provided by the resort. We often bring home up to 100 kg of fillets.

DAY 1-Stawell to Comeroo station

We depart from Stawell travelling via Swan Hill to Bourke for lunch, then on to Comeroo Station for our overnight stop. Our hosts tonight are Bruce and Chris Sharpe who provide great home cooked meals and a host of activities during the evening.

DAY 2-Comeroo Station to JULIA CREEK

Today we fly north crossing the dog fence on the border of NSW and Queensland, over the oilfields around Eromanga, then over the channel country of the Cooper Basin for a fuel stop and lunch at Windorah. As we leave Windorah we cross the watershed of the Cooper Creek and the headwaters of the Diamantina River, then as we move north we note that the rivers are now flowing north to the Gulf as we fly into the summer rainfall areas and on for landing and refuelling at Winton. Departing Winton we track directly to Julia Creek to overnight at Gannons Hotel/Motel.

DAY 3-Julia Creek to Mornington is.

After a hearty breakfast at Gannons Hotel, its airborne for the 2 hr flight to Burketown. Our track takes us over the floodplain of the Flinders River, crossing the Leichardt River and many Gulf Country Cattle Stations. Upon arriving at Burketown we top up with fuel before departing for Mornington Island. We usually have the people from the Burketown Pub collect us and take us to town for morning tea and short tour of the town. We arrive at Birri Fishing Resort in time for lunch. After lunch the afternoon is spent on the first fishing trip. The next 5 1/2 days are spent fishing, and eating restaurant quality meals in beautiful tropical surroundings in an open air dining room. There are a maximum number of 10 fishing people allowed at one time at the resort.

DAYs 4 to 8 - Mornington Island

Fishing the Gulf waters and relaxing at Birri.

DAYs 9 - Mornington Is. to birdsville

Early breakfast this morning, then we pack our catch and load the aircraft ready for departure. We track south to the mainland crossing the Gulf country rivers, then the rugged mountain ranges north of Mt Isa where we land for a fuel stop and lunch. This afternoon we track down over the channel country of the mighty Georgina River, passing Boulia of Min Min Light fame, then Bedourie and on to Birdsville where we stay tonight at the Birdsville Pub.

DAYs 10 - Birdsville to stawell

This morning we depart for the short flight over the Sturt Stony Desert to land and have breakfast at Cameron Corner, where three states meet. On this flight we cross the Coongee Lakes area and the Cooper flood plain which at this point is 100 km wide. We then cross the Cooper Creek itself, and the sandhills of the Strezlecki Desert. After breakfast we depart south usually following the dog fence which runs south along the SA border. This 2m high dog proof fence is the longest man made structure in the world, extending from Ecula on the Great Australian Bight to eastern Queensland. We follow this for a few miles, then track direct over the sheep station country of northern NSW to Broken Hill for a lunch stop. Departing Broken Hill we track over the riverland at Mildura then the wheat growing areas of the Northern Mallee returning to Stawell mid afternoon.