Well my friends, we did it! We survived, and even thrived during our five days on the Burrum River. When telling people about Pizzey’s it’s really hard to explain and describe. But basically it’s fishing “shacks”, built in “units”, a makeshift kitchen where we all make food together, a bucket shower, a flushing toilet (as of 2020; prior to that, it was always a long-drop toilet) time spent fishing, yabbying, crab-potting, going to the sandbar, sharing food and laughs and boardgames, and so much more.

I’ll let the photos do most of the talking 🙂

Darby with the camera I bought him for the trip – I gave him a list of 10 things each day to take photos of. Worked a treat!

The Easter Bilby found the kids on Easter Sunday and spoilt them rotten!

On the river side of the fishing shacks, with the boys pointing to the sand bar. We went there every day for 1-2 hours (dropped off by Grumpy in the boat) and the kids had the best time. It rained every day we were there, except the day we left, and getting in to wet togs every day wasn’t exactly a highlight!! But the kids loved having me over there with them, so it was so worth the effort.

Quinn’s big catch! She caught this grunter on her first cast, and of course loved fishing from then on. Grumpy (my Dad) teaches the kids about only keeping what we need, and learning to clean the fish you catch yourself. Such great lessons.

We kept this one and Quinn got to put her name in the record book. This book has been around for decades – there’s a photo of me in there too! We caught another fish in the crabpot later in the week, and even though it was a great size, we let it go as we didn’t need it or want fish for dinner that night.

We did however keep this mud crab! It was a beauty!

And super delicious cooked up in a crab and camembert quiche! Thanks Gran!

Chance treating us to pancakes for breakfast, and Nathaniel, one of my country cousin’s sons, doing his bit to keep the place tidy!

The kitchen. Kind of an indoors/outdoors set up!

Fishing off the pontoon. Darby and Jules had life jackets on whenever we were near the water, for their safety and my sanity!

Darby’s friend from school was staying in Maryborough with his family, and they came to visit us one day. So special!!! Thanks for coming up Lea and Mick!

Special times with Gran on the River.

The rain held off long enough to make a fire and roast some marshmallows, before it started raining again!

Chance loves telling the story of how this happened! I won’t give you the details as he might want to tell you some time, but it involved a crab pot! 🙂

Five day “camping” hair!

Tidying up the units before we left. Everyone lends a hand!

I asked Chance as we were leaving if he had a good time.
“Mama, it was indescribable.”

Such a great trip!

Now that we have done it once, I feel much more confident about next time. I would love for this to be a yearly trip for us. Each time we go (it’s been a while for me, granted) there are different country cousins and their kids up there. I grew up with these people and it means the world to me that everyone chipped in to help out, and that my kids get to experience all the fun that this place has to offer. Now with flushing toilets! Ha! Until next time!