Fishing on the Hawkesbury River, NSW

Foodbloggers fishing? Yes indeed! The awesome Billy had organised a weekend away on the Hawkesbury River with Helen, Richard, Simon, the Pom, Tim, Brian, Dave and I. And so our journey begins one super early morning with Simon picking up a bleary eyed Helen and I and being greeting by this awesome sunrise!

Powered by Mother energy drinks!

We arrive at Brooklyn Marina and the sun that shone so prettily that morning had all but disappeared leaving the place looking like a scene from Harper’s Island…

Feeling peckish we wander around and find a cafe selling bacon and egg burgers. That bacon was so freaking awesome and super crispy, I would totally go back just for the bacon oh yes.

Not wanting to take any chances, Helen and I split a box of Kwells. You know, just in case.

Our houseboat and home away from home, ‘the big dickie’! We hired the houseboat from Holidays Afloat and it was pretty big and fit us 9 comfortably with enough beds for all, decent kitchen area with fridge and stove + oven, dining room area, outdoor bbq, toilet + shower and an upper deck that we didn’t use much cos it was a tad cold.

The view from the back of the boat as we leave Mooney Mooney Bridge behind us

Hoho I’ll save you!

The Pom made a Victoria sandwich minus the royal icing but I reckon it’s perfect as the buttercream icing in the middle is nice and thick and mmm sweet!

DSLR porn

Oh don’t worry, I wasn’t the one steering the boat heh

And then it’s lunch time and Simon whips up his fabulous beef bulgogi on the bbq along with some spicy chilli pork with rice and lettuce cups

Apparently Tim is known as the crazy sweet dessert guy and his coconut ice does not disappoint with it’s hot pink coconut layer and zomg it is sweet but oh so good

We all caught fishies! But uh they were all undersized babies so we threw em back in. I failed in getting a photo of billy and his fishie so lol i snuck in a pic of the 2nd fishie i caught. How Helen caught her fish was particularly funny because she wasn’t sure if she’d lost the bait and kept yanking her line up and down to see if the weight of the bait was still on and finally reeled it in and lo and behold a fish! Who must’ve had a very sore neck… not that fish have necks…

And because we had only brought along 3 fishing rods + 1 fishing hand-reel, we took turns catching fishies and playing poker but since we didn’t have any poker chips we used sachets of sugar 😛

And i managed to wipe everyone and take their sugar sachets woohoo! And then it is tea time and billy has brought along some zumbo cakes but they sadly have not survived the trip and are a bit smashed but are still tasty

Billy takes me for a spin in the rowboat to the shore where I go looking for shells while he throws rocks at the jellyfish. I’m not sure why but jellyfish freak me out.

Darkness came fast and after playing a game of what weird songs does billy have on his phone we start on dinner of steamboat! Billy has whipped up 2 different broths- a vegetable, and a curry laksa soup base. The vegetable soon gets turned into a bak kut teh broth and the chopsticks go flying at the meat, fishballs and vegetables

Food bloggers attack!

But of course what’s dinner without desset? Tim the dessert king impresses us again with his chocolate bread & butter pudding that is so rich and chocolatey that I fall into a food coma

I awaken in time for Helen’s fondue where she has used jarlsberg, gruyere and tilsit to create a gorgeously cheesy mixture along with a bowl of blanched veggies and cubes of sourdough bread from luneburger

Heh stretchy! Every bit of cheese is finished and Richard laments for more but alas it is time to sleep so we clutch at our stomachs and wander off to our respective sleeping areas

The boys wake up early and start on the breakfast. The smell of bacon has me stumbling out of bed and greeting a much too awake Simon manning the bbq

Billy and his Hello Kitty pancake HAHAHA he looks sad here but really he’s about to chortle as he uses up the last of his tubs of ricotta haha he soon gives up on making individual hello kitty pancakes with Helen’s fry pan and resorts to giant random circular shapes in the bigger frypan

Our brekkie table! Creamy scrambled eggs, golden hash browns, crispy bacon, ricotta pancakes, Richard’s mushrooms, the leftover sourdough and of course hiding in the photo is billy’s jar of dulce de leche oh man the awesomeness that is dulce de leche

As the sun starts to set we head back to shore and grab a last minute group photo. Much love guys!

let’s fly jetstar heh this is how happy I was!

Our group of happy campers. Super thanks to Billy for organising! I had an awesome time and next time we bring more fishing rods haha