Mild blue yonder

Country singer Adam Brand swaps the microphone for the fishing rod and finds solace on the Gold Coast waterways

For the past 20 years I’ve strapped myself in, hung on, and thankfully had one hell of a ride. The music industry is relentless. It never stops. Well actually, life is relentless and it never stops.

No matter what you do or who you are, someone, somewhere, always wants – no, demands – a little piece of your soul.

A normal touring schedule consists of early morning wake-up alarms (contrary to the popular belief that musicians sleep all day), packing mountains of instruments and bags into a van, unpacking at the airport, checking it all in, picking it up at the other end at baggage claim, repacking it into another van, driving three to four hours to the gig to then … yep, you guessed it, unpack it all again. You could almost say touring bands are part-time baggage handlers.

Adam Brand

Then there’s the gigs, the best part of the job, by far. You can’t phone it in. The fans deserve so much more than that. They have bought their tickets, lined up and are waiting for what had better be a great show.

My nights at work are done at 105 decibels, with a guitarist on one side with an amplifier cranked up to 11 and a drummer behind me who’s whacking those drum skins as hard as he possibly can.

There are people in the front row dancing, sweating, yelling out the words at the top of their lungs as they momentarily escape from their everyday lives.

That’s what keeps me going. That’s what cranks my motor over. That’s the reason I grew up wanting to be a singer. The noise, the packing and unpacking, the banter, the laughs, the sound checks, the selfies, the CD signings, all finally die down at about 1am … 19 hours after that morning alarm went off.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining and you’ll never hear me complain because it’s what I love. But when it comes to taking a break, pausing and finding time to breathe slowly and deeply, what I really want, is silence.

No radio. No telephone. No television. Nothing.

I found that in January cruising the waterways of the Gold Coast in a houseboat that my beautiful partner Nui and I hired from Coomera Houseboat Holidays.

The Gold Coast waterways are some of the best in the world. Calm and protected from the ocean swell (important for me because I get very, very seasick), they are clean and full of life; full of crabs, and fish, and dolphins, and turtles, and all those incredible underwater creatures.

You can travel the waterways from the Gold Coast to Bribie Island, north of Brisbane, without having to go to the open ocean. They are broken up by little islands and mangroves dotted along the coast.

It’s just magnificent watching the sun set over the mangroves with the sky illuminating different shades of orange and beautiful blue water lapping the boat. It is the stuff you see on postcards.

I’ve always felt at peace on the water. The gentle rocking puts my soul in a proverbial hammock and swings away the stress like a metronome keeping time.And it’s pretty hard to find a bad spot on the waterways. You can always find your own private part of the beach, or the river.

Holidaying on the water gives you access to two distinctly different Gold Coasts. If you want, you can be in a five-star restaurant, cafe or cocktail bar, but 20 minutes later you can be sitting in the water watching the sun as it sinks behind the hinterland mountains, with no one else around.

Those two worlds are absolutely universes apart, but yet, they’re so close. I love that about the Gold Coast. I love the fact that even in the midst of all that hustle and bustle you can find your slice of paradise.

The Brand family has been coming to the Gold Coast for more than 40 years. We know it well.

As a kid I always looked forward to our annual pilgrimage. I remember driving up the New England Highway to the Gold Coast for the first time when I was eight years old. We headed north from Victoria in a HX Holden Kingswood station wagon, a beast of a car. It was green. My little sister was about two.

We stayed in a tiny motel, all we could afford, but to us kids it was like a palace. We’d go to the beach and I’d try to surf like “The Animal” Nat Young on a blow-up lilo mat. My little sister would be playing in the sand as I was getting tossed about, almost drowning, in the dumping waves.

It was the 1970s, so instead of sunscreen, Mum would put coconut oil on top of yesterday’s sunburn to help us tan. Sherbet, with their flared pants, tiny waists and big hair, topped the Australian charts with Howzat; Waylon and Willie sang about their love for a good hearted woman while Norman Gunston (Garry McDonald) received the Logie for most popular actor from Lee Marvin.

Back then, the Gold Coast was a magical world for a young fella like me – rides and slides, the beach every day, and endless ice creams and icy poles. I was a little ratbag. One of those kids who got up at the crack of dawn, grabbed the fishing rod and a piece of stale bread, and was gone.

I would catch a bag full of fish and then walk around to all the other motel units and make some cash selling the odd bream or flathead. A big score would be three or four 20c pieces which would go straight into the Space Invaders machine at the milk bar.

I just loved being free. I was never any good at school (that’s Rock Star 101 really). I didn’t want to sit inside, I didn’t want to be at a desk, I didn’t want to have to be writing things down and paying attention. I just wanted to be out there.

It didn’t matter where “there” was; I just wanted to be there. I wouldn’t say I was getting into trouble, but I was exploring, pushing boundaries, and perhaps getting into a little bit of mischief.

I’m still like that. Still that kid who wants to be somewhere out there, exploring.

The houseboat trip gave us the chance to be free and retreat into our own world, but with the luxury of air-conditioning, a chef’s kitchen, a rooftop spa and a different slice of million-dollar beachfront real estate every day.

Adam and Nui

We treated ourselves to three days of just spending time together, talking, away from the distractions of everyday life. The tide was our guide and it was in control of our daily routine.

We talked more about the big things, the important things in our life, than ever before. We talked about what we might be doing in 10 years’ time. We talked about things that you don’t usually talk about.

Would we have discussed them otherwise? Perhaps. They would have been squeezed into a conversation when time permitted, but that doesn’t happen often because there’s always something. Well, out on the water, there was nothing, just us.

We made a conscious decision to not answer emails and to avoid texts; to carve out some space to make the most of our break. I believe it’s important to empower yourself to enjoy the moment. To embrace the joy of missing out and focus on the reel world, not the real world, for a change.

My everyday life is about checking in, and clocking in, and this was three days of blissful checking out. No shoes, no shirt, no problems (apologies Kenny Chesney for stealing your line).

Having uncluttered time, quiet time, is what my heart craves. When you’re on the water, it is quiet. Apart from the occasional sea bird singing for the scraps of your supper, there’s nothing to distract you from doing, well, nothing. At night, it’s dark, but you can still see the lights of civilisation in the distance.

Choosing a houseboat holiday meant we were completely free. If someone was making too much noise, I just pushed a button, raised the anchor and moved up the beach a couple of hundred metres. If it got too windy, or too sunny, I just moved.

There was no routine. No alarm clocks to set and re-set. I’d open my eyes, look over at Nui, say, “Good morning, honey”, and then roll back over and have another snooze. When I eventually did get up, I’d walk around the boat, put the kettle on, and then go and check the crab pot.

Being able to throw in the fishing line at any time I wanted was a treat. I did OK. I caught one big catfish. It fought really hard.

After I reeled it in I held it up, got the obligatory photo and then it did a double somersault, a triple pirouette, crashed on to the duckboard and slid straight back in the drink. I gave it a good luck kiss as it went.

The crabbing provided me with a moment that I’ll remember forever. Nui is from Thailand and she loves seafood, especially crabs. For about 12 months she’s been wanting to go crabbing. It took this trip for us to get around to it.

When we checked into the boat I found a nice bright orange crab pot with my name on it. So I said, “Right Nui, we’re going crabbing.”

The first afternoon we headed north to a little spot at South Stradbroke Island, just past Tipplers Cafe.

At about 1pm we put the bait in the crab pot, went out on the tinnie and dropped the pot in among the mangrove roots. Then we returned to the houseboat.

Nui didn’t know what to expect when we got back to the crab pot a few hours later. I don’t think she expected to catch anything. So I started pulling the thing in and she was standing there with her camera, ready to take pictures. As the pot came up I could see these big, dark brown shapes and I was going, “Oh, I think we’ve got something here.”

Inside the pot there were three huge mud crabs and Nui was beside herself. There was disbelief and excitement, all in one. She was totally over the moon.

It’s a reaction I’ll never forget.

I had just become The Greatest Crab Hunter in the world and we had the pictures to prove it.

Special moments like that are meant to be cherished, remembered and revisited as many times as possible. They aren’t bought off the shelf like a grocery item.

They are created, sometimes randomly and unexpected, and sometimes they are really simple things.

To create them, though, you have to put in effort and care, and stop to take a breath.

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Produced in association with Tourism and Events Queensland, The Storyteller Series shines a spotlight on the state as never seen before. Next month, bestselling author Michael Robotham gets a taste of island life.

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