Fishing in the Macquarie River, Tasmania

This is officially my favourite river in Tasmania, because it is here that I saw my first platypus in the wild!  In Longford we stayed at the Longford Riverside Caravan Park which is right on the banks of the Macquarie River and was right next to the caravan park we stayed in.   We were allowed to fish in this river, so the kids all had a go! The bank was steep and I was thankful for these rocks that prevented the kids from getting too close to the water.  There was a boat ramp a little ways up but thankfully our toddler didn’t discover it until the end of our stay there. The first catch of the evening was…an eel!  This is the first eel any of us have ever caught so it was quite the moment with excitement all around.  We had several onlookers which made it all the more memorable. Jitterbug’s first catch of the night was also an eel! None of us really fancied eel for tea though we were given advice on how to prepare it.  No takers from the audience, so back into the river they went.  I love how the sky is reflected in the water in this shot, it looks like they are looking down into fog or something, you can’t see the water at all. SkeeterBug (10) won the crown for the evening, catching one eel, a small redfin, and two redfins that were big enough to keep. Though LadyBug (5) tried she did not catch anything while we were there.  Well, she tried when it suited her, anyway.  She was too busy playing to really be fishing. TurboBug was not quite sure about these things in the bucket that flipped around every once in awhile in a very unpredictable fashion. JitterBug (7.5) ended up with two eels and a redfin that was too small to keep. The next night someone had some fish to prepare!  You catch it, you clean it and prepare it.  We found TurboBug (19 mos) doing some fishing of his own.  Look at that grin!  He grabbed a pole  when he thought no one was watching and headed straight for the water. Everyone else holds these things out over the water, so that’s what I’m gonna do too! Look how close we were to the river!  That’s our caravan behind the tree, with the awning out and the bike behind it.  Taking this picture we were just steps from the river.  Not a moment’s rest here, we constantly had to be checking where the little guy was. We enjoyed our stay at this caravan park, we spent three nights here.  It’s a good place to use as a base to explore the surrounding area without having to be in a larger place.  And look at this!  Two Bailey caravans parked side-by-side.  It was our first chance to really talk to some other Bailey owners.  The owners had brought their van over from the UK and have been in Australia for about seven months.  It was fun comparing notes.  We hear a rumour that there is another family with four kids travelling Tassie in a Bailey caravan right now.  Would be great fun to run into them!