Rainbow Dreams

I can't believe it has been a whole month since we were on holiday at Rainbow Beach. We have been going there for the last week in July every year for years now, for the Rainbow Beach Fishing Competition.

The beach? In Winter? Ah yes, gotta love the Queensland climate :)

This year will have to be the last for Cheyenne and I, as she really shouldn't be missing out on a week and a half of school. They don't seem to be really learning all that much in Grade 1 and we did take schoolwork with us, so it wasn't as scandalous as it sounds.

While the "boys" (Steve, his Dad and a couple of mates) fished and won some daily prizes, it was all about the beach holiday for Cheyenne, Steve's Mum and I. Cheyenne really is a little beach bum.

It's a shame we had to come home.

If I won lotto, the first thing I'd do would be to buy a holiday house there.

Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day...

Teach a man to fish...

...and he will spend every spare dollar on boats, fishing gear and bait! (not quite how that saying goes, but definitely a lot more accurate than the original)

Well, since it has been nearly a month since our trip away at the Rainbow Beach Family Fishing Classic, I thought I should stop being slack and finally post about it.

This was the last year that Cheyenne and I would be going for the entire competition, since we will not be taking her out of school once she starts Grade 1, and the comp is not held during the school holidays. As they have done since they retired, Steve’s parents came along with us for the ten days.
The weather was fabulous and the fishing was good. The accommodation? Well, let’s just say we will never stay in that unit again. A certain real estate needs a slap upside the head and an education in maintaining accurate listing photos on their website. We had been booked into Kagari No.2, but thankfully, due to a last minute cancellation had changed our booking to Kagari No.1 (the front unit with more yard space)… and it is just as well !
If we had ended up in the converted garage (the back unit) I daresay Consumer Affairs would have been hearing about how the photos which are supposedly of Unit 2, are actually of Unit 1. In fact, Unit 2 is clearly not worth the amount of money required to rent it (for 10 days it was only $36 more for the front unit), and that is before you take into account the dodgy electrical wiring in both units (the electrician who came to fix one of our power points said he had never seen anything like it in all his years of electrical work) and the pint sized hot water system which is shared by both units!

Steve managed to get a couple of daily prizes for his fish, Cheyenne scored some random draw kids prizes and Steve’s dad jagged a nice Waeco esky in a random weight fish draw. Steve caught a stonker whiting (.605 grams gilled and gutted) on about the third night of the comp and it stayed on the board as the heaviest, right up until the second last night, when it was knocked off by a somewhat dubiously caught whiting that went .700 grams, gilled and gutted. The woman in question claimed it was caught in the surf, but it was dark skinned, like fish trapped in lakes and estuaries, and her husband is known to work alongside pro net fishermen. Nothing could be proven however, so she took out first prize ($400) for Overall Heaviest Whiting and Steve’s took out second prize ($200).

All in all it was a good week and a half. Shame I’m missing out next year.

Steve with the 2nd Heaviest Overall Whiting

Compare the sizes. The Whiting that Cheyenne is holding is around 26cm long, Steve's was about 47cm.

How NOT to drive on the beach! This poor guy thought he was following the shoreline of the beach at low tide, until he ended up on a sandbank and sunk up to the sidesteps on his Rodeo. They borrowed Steve's snatch strap but were unable to shift it. This was taken after the tide had come in and was on the way out again. The tow truck dragged it out at low tide for the sum of $200.