That is where I shall fish from at dusk

My brother Mark, is mad and keen for fishing. Some people go running, some people take pottery classes. Mark fishes. It's really that simple. So of course when we were staying with him in Australia, he was bulging at the seams with eagerness to get us out on the water.

Although it's just another day in paradise, paradise too has a down side. A side that will have your devoted to the water brother sing-songing F's and other inappropriate swear words that I wouldn't want my mum to read on here, than of course let me know that I had in fact, swore. That unwilling side would be wind. Wind is a little hairy at the best of times, so being out on the water with your brother, whom may I say is a perfectionist, and your husband, like me, who can't bait a hook, was all to adventurous without even the possibility of even catching a fish.

After Mark backed in the boat, Glenn was there holding on to it, knee deep in water, while I was sitting in the boat, taking advantage of getting some shots of Mark trying to explain to Glenn which way to push the vessel. My husband is a literal man, so when Mark doesn't tell him to get back into the boat after pushing it into deeper water, Glenn by this point, is chest high in water, with Mark and I wondering if we didn't tell him to get back in, would he have pushed us over to the other side of the river?

Although there is wind, it's still out of this world. We only had to drive around a few corners than down a road to get to the there. This was only my second time out on the Tweed River, and I had lived there on and off for about 12 years. Glenn and I were just looking at each other thinking, 'how the hell can we go back home, we need to stay here'. Besides fishing, we got to see this entirely different perspective of the area, an area I thought I knew really well. I seriously fell in love with a place I thought I already loved.

Not only did I discover that I want to do more fishing and live on the river in a shack that I've already picked out, but there is a Protected Rainforest Reserve, Stotts Island, running along the Tweed River only four minutes away. Stotts Island is the home of Mitchell's Rainforest Snail. The largest single area of the remaining habitat. Just picture, all that magnificent subterranean rain forest, surrounded with boats and cars and fields of sugar cane, there and only there are these tiny little snails the happiest.

Hello snails.

Hello lunch.

Which brings me to our my first destination of our maiden voyage together. To catch what would be lunch in three days time, we needed better bait than what we were using, which was frozen prawns, as we discovered Mark detested and were for the soul purpose of back-up bait in case the tide wasn't right for us to go catch our own fresh bait at a near by sand bank / island.

For a large portion of the journey, so far, Mark was telling us stories about different fish and other river dwelling creatures, also known as inappropriately sized sting rays, he or others had captured. So, upon arriving at the sand bank, Mark lets me know that there shouldn't be any sting rays under the mud. As you can imagine I'm doing everything in my power to tell myself to toughen up, thinking I've been in the city way to long if I'm freaking out over sting rays. Eventually I just scream at him and tell him there is no way I'm getting off the f'ing boat. Than he yells back at me and makes me feel guilty for wanting to stay on, reluctantly I get off and tread the two feet of water to land.

Seriously though, being female and boating with your brother, at times in need, such as relieving yourself, you just need to suck it up and hope that he is too busy at the other end of the island pumping for live yabbies. Which, I discovered, no matter how big the island, white bum cheeks will always stand out. This I learned as we were leaving the island and Mark told me he had turned around at the wrong time. Sorry about that.

Of course I'm not a great fisherman, I'm not even a fisherman at all, but I did manage to catch the only TAKE HOME AND COOK fish of the day. Sorry fellas, we don't like to eat sticks and leaves where I'm from. Flathead will do just fine. I'll stop gloating, now.

One more.

Once we disembarked, after waiting in an imaginary line on the river, behind other impatient fisher people, Mark did a quick gutting and beheading of the fish where I frantically rummaged to get my camera out.

Mark was practically mortified that I was snapping away, making us look like tourist. I on the other hand was excited. It's not everyday I get to go fishing, catch the fish, watch it be gutted and than filleted, cook it and than serve it with fresh, peppery rocket from the garden.

And that, my friend, is how you do it in the next world, an off-course and unassuming habitat.