Years ago when I lived in Sydney, my best mate and I used to go fishing in the hawkesbury all the time. Our boat wasn't that big but we got out the front a few times and hooked into the salmon, bonito and even some Mac tuna one day. We used to have the best fun targeting thumper bream at our favourite spots.

After moving to the country and only fishing freshwater for several years I was very excited when my mate called me and informed me he had purchased a boat. We organised to meet up and camp out on the Hawkesbury and fish our hearts out for a few days.

Several hundred dollars later, both of us had geared up and the weekend was upon us. My wife was glad to see me go as I had been talking fishing almost nonstop for the past 2 weeks and she said I was driving her nuts. I left Dubbo on thursday night in the drizzling rain. At lithgow I got held up for about 30 mins due to an accident and had to backtrack and go another way. It took 6 hours to get to the caravan park where my mate had pitched the tent in the camping ground.

Went to bed about 2am in the near torrential rain and woke up in time to see the first of the pooling water outside coming into our tent over the lip of the entrance. We ended up sleeping on our campchairs some what uncomfortable. 4.30am the alarm goes off and we start to get ready to go fishing. I'm still excited and as keen as mustard to get out there rain, hail or shine. After a couple of grumbles from my mate I said "Don't worry mate, it could be worse.'

We launched the boat at the ramp and I kicked the motor over. It started second go and was idling like a champ. My mate pushed us off and we drifted out onto the constantly moving reflections of the moon. I felt such a peace flow over me and I was so happy at that time. We drifted with the outgoing tide for about 10 mins letting the motor warm up while we sorted out some gear and stowed what could be stowed. Then my mate kicked her into gear and the motor started to push us along. Then it went dead.

After numerous attempts to start her I cracked my camp BBQ out and we used the gas can to kick the 2 stroke over. She would fire but wouldn't keep running. After cleaning the plugs we were lucky enough to get her to go but it sounded like it was only on 2 cylinders. We limped back to the boatramp just as she gave out. She never kicked over again. I think god was being nice to us by getting us back to the ramp. I said "don't worry mate, it could be worse. We remembered to put the bungs in."

Several hours later we had isolated everything else and decided it must have been a cracked cylinder head. We were both crushed. My mate more so than me so I made an effort to keep upbeat. Back at the camp site sloshing around in the 2 inch deep lake that we had our tent in the middle of, I cooked up some snags and we had the best tasting snag sandwiches known to man. I was glad it was raining on us. it made the hot snags even better.

Anyway from great excitement to dissapointment we headed back to sydney. On the way back we saw a boat on the side of the road with a shredded tyre on the trailer. I got on the CB and told my mate "See, It could have been worse."

Not more than 20 mins later doing 80 in the 110 zone highway the passenger side tyre dropped off the boat trailer. The nuts had all come off. We both pulled over and through the hail of sparks I saw the tyre rolling across the Highway forcing the traffic to brake to avoid it. No one had an accident, I found the tyre, we were able to rig up some washers on some borrowed nuts to get us back to my mate's house. I couldn't believe it was only friday. We had a good weekend after all and "It Still could have been worse."

I'm banned from saying that again when we go back for another try.

Dicko..