Ray was true to his word and up and out the door early in pursuit of the elusive fish. He thought it best to dress in the fishing clothes that he wore yesterday (he’d put them in a plastic bag overnight) so that he didn’t ruin any other clothes.
I agreed and so the last I saw of Ray was actually the smell of Ray that he left behind long after he left the van. It demanded a long spray of air freshener to relieve the small space.
Henry and I got up and pulled our walking gear on. We decided to take advantage of the cooler air before it got too late. There is an off lead park around a lake just down the road and so we headed there. We met plenty of other dogs along the way who has the same idea and it was very pleasant walking along the Barron River that was flowing strong after the recent rains.
When we got to the park and found our way to the off lead section, part of it was under water and stagnant. The smell of the water wasn’t pleasant so we rested on a bench and admired the beautiful lake that this community had to enjoy. We noticed piles of dirt and the council workers on lawnmowers. Perhaps they were going to do something about the overflow from the lake to the the paths.
The morning was heating up quickly and by the time we got back Henry would have been walking for an hour. This is plenty of movement for his (still healing) knee. We returned to the van. As we arrived our neighbors who have travelled from Western Australia in a converted bus called out to me full of apologies.
“We thought you were out because your car is gone. We need to empty our black water so waited til we knew you were out because it is going to really stink and you are going to cop it.”
For those of you who don’t know, self contained vehicles have black water and grey water tanks. Grey water is water from doing dishes, having a shower, a washing machine etc. Black water is from the toilet. Each must be disposed of differently and are collected in separate tanks.
In a bus, these tanks are huge! In our caravan these tanks are quite small, especially the black water.
I said, “No worries, you do what you have to do. I’ll be inside the van. If Henry is outside, I’m sure he won’t complain.”
She was concerned that I would still smell it, but going for another walk was not an option, the coffee shop was closed, I needed a shower and thought I could just hold my nose if things got bad.
“I”ll pop the air-conditioning on. She”ll be right.”
Henry chose to come inside with me and promptly fell asleep on the bed. I showered and started pottering around inside the van and quite forgot about the threat of the stench from outside. When I remembered, I gave a tentative whiff and all was clear. There was a delicate lemon smell that could have been a remnant of the air freshener from this morning or could have come from next door’s clean tanks.
Either way, it was all clear.
Ray was providing me with updates on how he was going at the pier. He had caught 3 fish and one was big enough to keep and eat for lunch. It was a Trevally. Exciting.
While he was there, he said that a bus load of American tourists got off and came along the pier looking at what everyone was doing. There was only Ray and one other person who had caught anything, (and he added that only himself and the other person who had caught anything were the people who had buckets!) Anyway, the American busload of tourists walked up to Ray and said, ”What did you catch?” Ray said, “Well, it’s a shark.”
Of course, Ray was referring to his Trevally fish. The American tourist said,” Wow is that what a shark looks like in Australia? It’s a bit small.” Ray replied, “Well it doesn’t have to be big to kill you!”
They wanted to take photos of it and and before long, Ray was posing with them and letting them take turns having their photo taken with the “shark”.
Ray warned them to watch the fins at the top because it was a really poisonous part of the shark, and that that was the part that could really hurt and kill you. Ray is known for playing these little practical jokes on tourists who don’t know any differently. He giggled to himself knowing they would eventually find someone who is in the know and show their photo to them. That person would then say, “That’s not a shark, that’s such a Trevally, that bloke on the pier was totally pulling your leg.”
Ray was telling me this story when he got back to the van. I made him sit on a stool on the grass in the site next to us that was vacant so that I couldn’t smell him. He had filleted his Trevally and had planned to cook it for lunch after he had cleaned up. When I saw the size of it I decided to let him enjoy the fruits of his labour all to himself. It resembled sushi rather than a piece of fish shop fish.
Ray cooked it in the frypan in butter and enjoyed it. He offered some to me which I declined, happy to let him enjoy it all to himself. He then offered some to Henry, who accepted (it amazes us what he will eat) the morsel that Ray was willing to part with.
“See, I caught a fish that was big enough to share!” Declared Ray. I should have known that he had an ulterior motive for offering his catch around.
We had guests for dinner so we shopped and eagerly awaited our first dinner guests at our caravan. Kaz, Dave, Mackenzie and Logan came and we gave them the grand tour of the van (this took precisely 2 minutes). Logan, their 5 year old son, was so excited to be in the caravan and particularly besotted with the toilet. I suppose to a 5 year old, a caravan is just like a cubby house with everything that opens and closes and actually works.
We had an enjoyable night and made plans to catch up again.
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