The Power Of Hunger

Have you ever known what it’s like to be truly hungry? I mean extreme hunger, where your stomach cramps until you’re doubled over in pain?

You’ll do anything for your next meal!

This photo is my ‘everything’.

It was 1989 and although my partner and I lived in paradise, we were broke. ‘On the bones of our arse’ broke!

We lived in a caravan in a near new caravan park in Broome, Western Australia, back before it was a popular tourist destination, not like it is today.

Neither of us had a job at the time. I had a spinal injury that stopped me from working and my partner was looking for work. Therefore, we had to get creative to eat.

On the day this photo was taken, we had no food whatsoever in the caravan and we were both hungry. We did however, have fuel in the car and decided we’d head to the Fitzroy River near Derby, about a two hour drive, and camp for the weekend.

The idea was to catch our own food.

Easier said than done, knowing that the Fitzroy River was home to many large salt water crocodiles. Any time we neared the waters edge we were extremely wary and on the look out for any ambush — the crocodiles wouldn’t hesitate in an easy and free meal.

We camped on top of a steep bank, a deterrent to any crocodiles climbing the steep angle from the river to our camp site, but it also made it difficult for us to scamper down to the waters edge when we needed to.

We’d arrived at our camp the night before and the first thing I did was edge my way down the steep bank to the waters edge, searching for an ideal location to drop in a cherabin net.

For those unsure, a cherabin is a large freshwater prawn.

I spied a decent sized tree branch, hanging a considerable distance over the water and decided that would be perfect.

I cautiously walked the branch as far as I could, which left me hovering about a half a metre drop to the water and threw the cherabin net over the side, tying it off to the tree branch.

Periodically throughout the night, I’d walk that branch to check the net but I wasn’t catching much. A few cherabin here and there but not enough to fully satiate two adults.

My partner was lure fishing, trying to catch dinner but again no luck on this night.

We decided to catch some sleep instead and try again in the morning.

The first thing I did on waking was scamper down that bank, hoping that I’d caught enough cherabin to tame my growling tummy, holding my breath as I walked that tree.

I’d forgotten about the crocodiles at this time as my stomach pains were overriding my common sense.

As I grabbed the rope of the cherabin net and gave it a good yank, it almost flew from my grip as it thrashed around below the water. I had no idea what I’d caught but my tummy was dancing with joy.

When I pulled the net clear of the water, the thrashing almost pulled me off the tree. I was ecstatically surprised to see a smallish barramundi thrashing around in the bottom of my net. It had swum in to eat the cherabin I’d caught and it was just sheer luck on my part that I pulled the net when I did.

No wonder I wasn’t catching many cherabin last night!

Fried barramundi on an open fire. Now it was more than my stomach churning, my saliva glands were on overload.

I called out to my partner for help. He came down and grabbed the barramundi from the net as soon as I’d gotten it back to the bank and then started the steep crawl up the hill to our camp.

Until the unthinkable happened!

With one final, desperate thrash of its tail, the barramundi jumped from my partner’s hand and began to slither down the bank.

I watched in absolute horror as my breakfast sort to flee its fate.

“No!” I yelled in shock.

I was too far away to be of any assistance and was almost in tears at the dashing of my hopes of a delicious meal.

My partner however, was not giving up and with no thought to his personal safety, threw himself stomach-first down that slippery slope, following in the wake of my barramundi.

Could he rescue our mission? Could he really save our breakfast plans from sheer disaster?

I wish mobile phones were a thing back then because having this on video would have been priceless!

Fish and man in a struggle for survival.

Well, I’m happy to say, on this occasion the fish did not win. Here I am holding our prize in my hand just prior to cleaning it and gently inserting it into a hot, sizzling frypan on our open fire.

Breakfast that day was a thing dreams are made of — I swear I can still taste the delicious flesh of that barramundi today!