ON our bush trips, we generally went solo.
We were not fond of travelling in convoy with other families, partly because we were invariably tail-end-Charlie and ate dust the whole way, but mostly because we found that the strain of bush life often led to bickering and ruined friendships.
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There was one exception: the Harris family: Byron (who never really wanted to be compared to Harry Secombe) and Karen (whose conversation was punctuated phonetically – “Bloody hell” for a comma and a lilt of Welsh laughter for a full stop) and their children, Rachel and Julian.
One day somebody had a bright idea. Why not go for a picnic somewhere up-river?
Then, while the men and children chug downstream in the boat, doing a bit of fishing on the way, the women could take the two vehicles and the trailer to some prearranged pick-up point.
We picked a lovely, sunny Sunday in mid-winter, while Jacquie was spending her school holidays with us, and set out to try it.
There was nothing pioneering about the plan. We were only setting out to do what many people had done already, but those who had successfully navigated the course before us, had done it in the previous year.
We should have checked up before we left, but it never occurred to any of us that the river could now be so choked with reeds as to make the journey impossible.
It simply could not be done, and the two-hour pleasure cruise turned into a 24-hour search and rescue operation.
While Karen Harris and I packed up the remnants of our picnic, the two men and the three older children armed themselves with fishing rods and took to the water.
Jacquie wanted to take little Karen with them, but I thought that two hours in the boat might be a bit much for her and, in any case, I had forgotten to bring her life-jacket, so she had to stay with me.
Our convoy of two vehicles, containing two women, one small child and one large dog, headed for the causeway where we had arranged to meet the others.
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