Here We Go Again - Chapter 22 - Barracrab to Mackay

It never rains in Barracrab, so says the park manager. Sorry, wrong. It rained last night, and rained quite heavily.

We are the closest site to the street. On the other side of the street is the railway line and just beyond that the highway. We know this because, the trains rattled by all night and large trucks intermingled with the cars, all could be heard from the van. We could have had an unpowered site way down the back of the park, closer to the beach, but we wanted a quick get away this morning. There is family to be met today.

Last night was the first night of the tour we had not needed the doona AND the extra blanket, in fact we kicked off all  but the sheet. A very pleasant night’s sleep, and the traffic  noise didn’t really affect the sleep. It was just there. You got over it very quickly. At least the trains refrained from using their whistle anywhere near us.

Although wanting to bug out early, we are in no super hurry. Darryl, my cousin, and whose house is our destination today wont be home until around 10.00am. He is on grandfather duties with his one grandson Nash and has something to do with him this morning. Mackay is some 120 kilometers away so  not more than around an hour and a half.

Silver Leader and Forbsy are staying another night in Barracrab looking to chase the trophy fish of the area, so its just me and Robyn heading out. Being in no hurry, Robyn cooks bacon and eggs, which I must admit I am starting to get very used to as opposed to my normal “leftovers” approach to breakfast. I also want to see the low tide and capture some shots before we go.

Its a grey and dull morning. There is a mist across the sand flats that seem to make them merge into the grey distance of the clouds. The tide is at its lowest. It is with great difficulty that you see the water in the far distance. In time all this visible topography will be replaced with the almost 6 metre tide that will flow in across the rocks and mud, bringing with it all manner of marine life. 

It os on the top of the tide that Silver Leader and Forbsy hope to engage the top of the marine food chain in “mortal combat”.

I have a short predicament. I need to go out via the entrance from my spot and there is a tree at the gate which I need to negotiate on the inside of my sharp turn. I enlist the assistance of Silver Leader, we ponder the turn, the options that present themselves and then simply drive out, not touching the tree as in fact we discerned I could make enough width in my turning circle to ensure the tree (and the van) remained undamaged. 

We head along Barracrab’s one street, back towards the boat ramp from yesterday. There are even better shots here to be taken. I stop the rig, race across the street into a park and capture vistas of rocks, mangroves, mud flats, mist and perhaps some ocean. Back to the Cruiser its time to head off in earnest. A buzz box, as we like to call them, one of the small Winnebago type vehicles has gotten in front of me while I was snapping vistas. Before we get to the highway, he pulled over to let me pass. He received a hearty wave from both of us in appreciation, we in turn get a smile and clear air in front.

On the highway, the road alternates between vistas of greenness that is sugar cane crops and more arid, although not as bad as yesterday’s cattle farms. Moving closer to Mackay, there are no cattle, only sugar and the occasional macadamia plantation. Its hard to ascertain for a beginner what is ready to harvest and at what other stages of maturity the sugar cane is at. Now and then you will see a tilled paddock ready for sowing or you will see three and four metre crops apparently ready for harvest, but nothing in the “middle”, save the odd plot here and there of nothingness.

From what an uninitiated observer can ascertain, approaching harvest the cane gets a grey, final windswept wisp of grass like “flower”, the only difference I can make out between any of the paddocks and paddocks of cane we pass.

The GPS is telling us we are getting close to our destination. In fact we have less than one kilometre to travel from the road we are presently travelling to our final destination, once we make the turn. As we get closer to the turn it is apparent the GPS is about to take us into the car park of a hotel/motel/bottle shop. 

Intriguing to say the least. 

Too late to abort (I am pretty sure the truck drivers behind would not have appreciated a diversion back into the traffic), we take the plunge into the car park. As luck would have it (and the GPS describes it as a thoroughfare), there is another exit to this car park road and we are very quickly one street away from our destination.

Darryl and Nash are waiting for us. In the middle of morning tea, consisting of toasted cheese sandwiches, which feed the two fox terriers as much as Nash, and glasses of water, they soon engulf us in hugs.

Darryl is family. Not just a relation, he actually came to live with us, just as I was about to start school. He is only 5 years older than I, so the reasoning behind relocation from Condolbolin to Rye Park is unclear to both of us, suffice to say he remembers being told he was there to help my mother with the initial schooling of me and my sister.

Darryl’s wife Lorelle is at work and will return home around 1.00pm and tag team Darryl for the afternoon session with Nash. They have him Mondays and Tuesday and would have him all week if they could but his routine of pre school and the interaction with children his age means two days per week is all that is required.

Darryl and Lorelle dote over their one and only grandchild. He is not spoilt by any means but one might suggest he has his nanny and pappy wrapped around his two year old finger. 

Nash is somewhat of a miracle. The son of Kendall, their daughter, the only surviving child of this pair. They have had some very harsh handed dealt to them over the years but they are a testament to their character. These are good people, they are family, and I have been looking forward to this part of the journey as much as any other time.

With Lorelle home from work, Darryl is of a mind to take me fishing. He suggests the tides are all wrong for the best of his spots but we will go anyway. We pack some gear, I grab the frozen bait remnants from the freezer in the van (Robyn will be most happy about that) and we fill his truck with “stuff” and head off, I know not where.

Suspecting we are heading for some secret secluded spot, I am mildly amazed to have us stop at a local beach, fully equipped with a surf pool, netting off the nasties. Darryl suggests there is a creek of sorts running behind the pool and as the tide ebbs, it will come more apparent and in the meantime we can pump nippers and have baits set in the lowering water.

The nippers are plentiful if not small compared to Smiths Lake. We easily fill the small bait box and we rig for long casts and standing in the water. Now this is Mackay, well into crocodile territory, standing in the water is that a life threatening practice. Darryl suggests not, well not here, but there are other spots he certainly would not engage in the practice.

The tide is ebbing quickly and as there are no bites, to be had, we move along the beach in search of our elusive prey. Other than no bites, we now encounter our next problem. The mudflats are just that, mud, and as soon as you get away from a sand spit, you sink knee deep or worse in its engulfing lair. Because we are working the water and not the beach as yet, seeing the change between sand and mud, is impossible and sinking into it knee deep, means there is another knee deep worth of water above it.

The suction of the mud is intense. Not falling over is a battle, that I almost lose on numerous occasions. If only my sister were here, she would be wet and caked in mud in an instant, laughing her head off. Darryl and I are strugglingly enjoying the fun.

We find an outcrop of hard sand and can see the creek meandering towards us, in range of a good cast. We fish here, capturing our breath for a while. There are bait fish jumping in all directions along the creeks edge yet neither of us are experiencing bites. 

Darryl retires to the beachhead where the gear is stowed, now some 100 meters away, skirting the mud as much as possible which is now more visible and returns with a throw net. His efforts in catching more bait go unrewarded but the stirring of the water seems to have given rise to a change in my fortunes. I have a tentative bite.

Very tentative and somewhat terrorist bream like, I wait the time to strike. Stike, yeah right, I go to bring in my line and check it and a fish is on. Bloody unlucky fish. To my disappointment it is a green toad fish about 30cm in length. Totally inedible and were I to even take a photo of it I would be unable to show it to the others for fear of unrelenting sledging (and rightly so) for the rest of the holiday.

Luckily the fish frees itself and any contemplation of pictures goes away with the fish.

Enough of this. Time to retire, but before we do we replenish the bait box with nippers ready for the right tide in the morning. Darryl suggests we will only get a couple hours of perfect running water on the run in tide. This also assumes we, on grandpa duties are allowed to bring Nash with us. I suggest to Darryl, we do have Robyn…..

Water, sand, mud and a two year old, what could go wrong. Darryl suggests he is going to teach him to fish and is very excited that he may catch his first. His mother Kendall is a very keen fisher and often outfishes her father when they accompany each other on trips. Apparently she can out drink him as well according to Darryl. 

This family is very close knit. They certainly do not live in each others pockets but they are a unit.

Back home, tails between our legs, at least there are cheese and bikkies waiting. I break out the special rum from our Bundy trip and offer Darryl a snifter. He does not refuse and once that has been enjoyed, reverts to his drink of choice – Chivas. There is a cacophony of laughing expletives as the bottle, taking from what should have been a “new in the box” situation, has had an attack of the Kendall’s apparently. Darryl laughingly replays the “she can out fish and out drink me” story line.

Dinner is a corn beef and veggies affair, and I must admit after the cheese and bikkies, it is a struggle to eat it all.

After dinner I want to show then some videos taken at the end of the last tour, of aunts, now riddled with dementia, in front of a camera recounting stories of their childhood and the struggles with ethnicity, Mrs Watts and the stolen generation, which they were on the fringes, in constant fear, without knowing why.

Both Lorelle and Darryl are mesmerised and stuck to the laptop gorging themselves with the media, taking in the nostalgia, at times having the conversation fill in gaps of their understandings of our heritage. Now and again they recount experiences interwoven with the strotes being played out in front of them. Lorelle of course is a latecomer to the family  but apparently there is more of a link than simply being married to Darryl.

I am astounded to know his father was not a Holmes, but actually Sanders. This came out when he remarried after the death of his first wife, my Aunty Bette who died from a heart attack prior to her 50th birthday. A day I will not forget when mum received the news at home. She was too taken aback for days at the news of losing her older sister too early.

There were other deaths as well. My cousin Dennis died playing football. Darryl and Lorelle lost a child to cot death are two that come to mind in the present company. A chilling reminder is a quick anecdote Darryl accounts suggesting when they were to pass Kendall’s room, she would roll over and suggest everything was alright – she was still alive. How they could recount a story like that shows the resolve a good family can instill.

We reminisce about old times, how family survives all adversity and yes there is hurt, but it is somewhat eased by the “big hug”.