The Young and the Restless | When a floating feed is just what you need

By Bree Harding

Oct 2, 2023

Serenity: Luke Mulwala is vast and picturesque.

Winter is my least favourite season and often by the end of it I feel like I’m holding out for a touch of warmth by the thinnest thread.

Seasonal Affective Disorder is a real thing, and while some experts argue that our climate doesn’t have the extremes that could quite bring on a true or severe case of it, I’m almost certain I get a touch of it every August.

Dramatic? Maybe.

But if you feel like me, you will know how those first few days of the mercury rising high enough to get your fluorescent legs out is like some sort of rebirth.

Last weekend was the first time I unsheathed my pale pins this season and it was glorious.

Not so much the winter stubble, but the weather.

We headed over to Mulwala with a big group to jump on a couple of “barby” (barbecue) boats to celebrate a milestone birthday in the family.

Being pre-booked for a while, we had no idea the weather gods were going to deliver us a perfect day for the occasion — cloudless skies, flat water, mid-20s temperatures — of course, in spring, especially in September, it could’ve gone either way.

So we boarded our 10-seat and 12-seater boats and set sail across the picturesque Lake Mulwala as swallows darted playfully in our slipstream and seagulls hovered, hopeful to snag some snack scraps, by the bow.

Nesting cockatoos poked their crested heads out curiously from the lake’s signature hollow trees they were sharing with small green parrots, far from shore, as we passed by.

As we cruised, we connected our own devices to the Bluetooth sound system on board and fought the urge to play Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On, opting for a soundtrack less ominous than one for a movie about a sinking ship.

And while my boat-licensed brother-in-law masterfully skippered our vessel, it’s not necessary to be licensed to hire and drive one of these beauties.

After exploring the vast lake for a while (regretting the missed opportunity of not all dressing in pirate-themed garb) and eating a delicious barbecue lunch my mum provided and my sister cooked for our boatload, we stopped and dropped some lines in.

As with the boat licence, individual fishing licenses are not required aboard these boats either, so that was one less task or expense anyone had to worry about before we left home.

While we had a few bites here and there, out of the 17 of us, only one of us successfully closed the catch.

Now, I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging because I’m convinced that catching fish is 95 per cent luck, especially when I was using a half-broken $30 Kmart rod baited with an unmoving piece of cheese.

But being the first time I’ve ever caught a cod — or any fish that size, for that matter — I feel it would be wrong to not at least lightly exercise the bragging rights I’ve earned until someone else in the family lands another one that size or bigger.

Of course, the credit can’t all be mine, with my brother-in-law talking me through the catch and netting the beautiful spotted aqua animal as I brought it to the surface.

My kids, my sister and my nieces all took the role of paparazzi, so there was no chance of losing the evidence of the monster catch that unwillingly boarded our boat, once it was sent safely back to its underwater home.

We spent three relaxing hours on the water aboard our ‘barby boats’, which was just the right amount of time to sightsee, cook and eat, catch a fish (well, for one of us, *wink wink*), get a touch colour on our fluoro legs and make it back to shore before the drinks we had with lunch had us busting too much for a loo.