Let's not be a sheep and mention the occasion

We all know what the big occasion was days ago. So let's all pretend we didn't see it and continue on with our journey.

A bit of a jump ahead, and at the same time a slide all the way back.
We're going to Hervey Bay. Home of whale watching, Vic Hislop and one of the Mcpherson sisters. The sweet one. Well technically I wouldn't know. It's only Mimi I've spoken to. Both in Hervey Bay as a child and years later I handled a complaint she made to a company I was working for. She was very polite for a complainant.

So we find ourselves in the bay. It was a family drive from Bundaberg to visit my Aunt and Uncle. Actually it may not have been from Bundaberg, I think we were coming from Mundubbera. It was at least a day on the road, which eliminates Bundaberg.......Then again we did so much driving in those years it's hard to keep one trip seperate from another.
The drive was only about a visit, come see my relatives, play with my cousins and go home in a few days.
We arrived just before lunch and Uncle Mick (not really my uncle and not a nice person) took us all for a walk along the Jetty at Urangan. It was always referred to as the mile long Jetty. But I don't think it was a mile by the time I got to see it. We walked along, smelling the sea air, which was a beautiful smell I enjoy to this day. Seeing fisherman bringing in a catch.
It seems every second person had a bin with them, lots of them had water. Little fish swimming in the bucket. Bait it seems.

Learning with Kal

When fishing, bait is important, and the bait used will play a major part in what you catch, if anything. Not surprisingly, many fish like to eat other fish. Small fish therefore make an excellent bait. And to keep things simple, the universe made them not very smart. So by using only a herring jig (read piece of line covered in little hooks) you can catch many of them quite quickly. All you do is lower it into the water and shake it up and down, this "jigs" the line and attracts the little herrings. They eat the hooks, get stuck and you reel them in. They can then be used for bait for other fish or to be sold........ as umm bait

So fisherman everywhere with buckets of bait, and a few started bringing in larger fish. Queenies, Kingfish, some big Trevally. It was exciting to see someone reel in a fish almost the size of me. And Paul decided we would move here. Immediately. At the time I thought this meant go home, sort things out and come back soon.

I was mistaken. It meant moving now. This minute and Paul would go home to collect our stuff and sell the caravan. So we did. But we moved to a house. It was so exciting. We lived right on the main road, 5 minutes walk from the beach and the "mile long jetty". Our Auntie lived next door, there was a supermarket at a small set of shops a hundred yards in the other direction and a second hand shop called "Telelist". We spent large portions of our meagre income here. And our pocket money.
The other big thing to spend money on was fishing gear. I wasn't the most excited fisherman ever, but I took part. We bough knives. And Axes. And rope. And Tomahawks. Back in the day young kids could buy anything.
By bike we would roam Hervey Bay. From one end to the other. Whether it was visiting Jonathan and his siter in one direction, or riding in the opposite direction to Max's Video shop. Max would hire us Ducktales and Herbie movies, or Sega Games. It would be years before I realised how nice Max was. We often got several movies for the price of 1 and we nearly always got a free sherbert lollipop. Those lollipops were fantastic, Sold all over Australia. Light pink or Tan and fizzy fizzy sherbert. (not sherbert filled, the whole lollipop was fizzy)
Max is one of the people I pride myself on being like.

I went to school while we lived here. Urangan State Primary School to be precise, it was year 3 or 4 I beleive. and my teacher was Mrs Rasmussen. An american woman with a shock of white curly hair. This was 1988. I know for sure because we got a coin at school. To celebrate 88.
The bicentennial coin all Australian kids got. Do you still have yours? I don't so I just bought one on ebay.

Other stand out moments here included learning to play Vigaro. Who uses a bat that shape? And learning about archery. We only shot little arrows, but Steve at Telelist explained to me what a compound bow was and how it worked. Unfortunately I did not have enough to buy one.

I also experienced a cyclone here. Dark clouds and strong winds filled the day before and as night came all hell broke loose. I slept through another on years later, but this one, I did not.
We all huddled together in one room. We heard a terrible roar as the wind pushed the rain hard against the house. Windows smashed, and being so close to the beach, the water made its way right to our steps. Luckily it was a high set house. This was a scary time. Would we make it through? Would our house collapse exposing us to the elements?

Was my time as a guest over?