Brisbane River - Heart of the city

Brisbane River - Heart of the city

While most of us enjoy a temporary connection with the river that snakes through the heart of the city – perhaps as a picnic spot, a kayak course, commute or even a party cruise – others are bound to it in very different ways, as Tonya Turner discovers

SHANNON RUSKA, TOORABUL AND YUGGERA ELDER

TRADITIONAL OWNER, STORYTELLER

When he gathers with family and friends by the Brisbane River to celebrate they make music, dance, swim and fish, catching freshwater mullet “as long as your arm”, hunt for witchetty grubs in the gum trees and use river rocks and river water to cook freshly caught fish and food wrapped in paperbark or lemon myrtle leaf – although these days they often use banana leaves or alfoil. “We move with the times,” Ruska says with a laugh.

Ruska says he couldn’t live anywhere else but the land of his ancestors. “I did move up to Mackay once but I moved back because this is my home both physically and spiritually. I can’t go away for more than a month before I need to be on Brisbane soil again.”

JONATHAN SRI

HOUSEBOAT OWNER

Living on a houseboat wasn’t something Jonathan Sri, 31, ever imagined he’d do but, tired of renting in the city, the high-profile Greens councillor decided to buy a boat and make it his home instead. Two years later, he has no plans of moving anytime soon. The 30ft bay cruiser he and his partner Anna share is moored in a tranquil tributary of the Brisbane River where the water is calm, but the sandflies come out in force.

“It’s a trade off,” he says. The cabin is just five metres long by four metres wide with a small but well-equipped kitchen, compost toilet, shower cubicle, dining table and a bed that doubles as a couch where they can watch their little TV. Books are stacked on shelves filling every available space on the boat. “It’s really cosy,” Sri says. “It’s very compact inside but then we have a bit of extra space on the roof and on the deck. It makes you think a lot about material possessions and how much you really need to live a comfortable life.”

While he admits boat life isn’t for everyone, Sri says there is a strong sense of community among river dwellers. “We all keep an eye out for each other,” he says.

DAMIAN HAYES

WATER POLICE OFFICER

As the countdown begins to Sunsuper Riverfire on 28 September, the climax of Brisbane Festival when 500,000 people flock to the riverside to watch low flying military aircraft, tonnes of fireworks and stunning laser light shows, water police officer Sergeant Damian Hayes, 50, and his colleagues prepare for their busiest night of the year. Hayes has seen people do some pretty silly things on the river in his time. Many of them, unsurprisingly, while under the influence of alcohol, jumping off small bridges into the water for fun or swimming from one side to the other for kicks.

“People in the water are by far our biggest risk. It happens more regularly than you’d think. Just with the level of intoxication, they don’t weigh up the risks,” he says. And clearly they haven’t seen the shark warning signs!

KEITH STRATFORD

FISHERMAN

Camping trips with his dad and brother at South Stradbroke Island, pumping yabbies and catching bream, fill Keith Stratford’s childhood memories and now he shares his passion with others as a columnist for Bush ‘n Beach Fishing Magazine. He’s been fishing since he was about four years old and is passing on everything he knows to his two young children aged four and eight.

Although Stratford, 38, fished almost every day before he had kids, he still gets out several times a week. On any given morning he’ll likely be found zigzagging up and down the river to some of his favourite spots around the Port of Brisbane, Fisherman Island and “pretty much anywhere between the Gateway and the mouth of the river – it’s where a lot of the fish congregate and you get different species at different times of year.”