Morning in Milang

On a cold morning Lake Alexandrina generated its own heavy fog.  The fog oozed over Milang, driven by a little breeze that nibbled at exposed skin and chilled the metal picnic benches in the park, causing me to stand while I drank my thermos coffee.

A fisherman huddled on the Milang jetty, three fat fish flapping on the wooden planks behind him while a pelican narrowly missed hitting a lamp post due to watching the fish.

"They're European Carp," the fisherman said, jiggling himself up and down to stay warm.  Unlike me in my cosy puffer jacket, he wore just a garden variety tracksuit although he had pulled the hood up as a nod to the cold weather. "They're a pest.  They drive out the native fish.  And they taste muddy."  He considered this statement a bit.  "Although when I was young I had a European girlfriend and her grandfather made carp fishcakes.  They were beautiful."

I don't think he asked for Grandpa's recipe and the girlfriend was long gone, so now he fishes for fun and to reduce the carp population.  "And to feed the pelicans," he added.

Sure enough the pelican was lurking, drawn by the easy meal but too wary of our close proximity to successfully grab a meal.

Just a little closer...

"Poor bugger," said the fisherman.  "He just wants a feed.  And there's just one of him, usually there's a whole mob."  He took pity on the pelican, left his fishing rods for a moment, and threw the pelican a fish. An awkward moment followed, with the fish safely in the pelican's bill but quite obviously not in the right position to be swallowed. The pelican took to the water to solve this problem without having to worry about our threatening presence.

The three of us watched until the fish was safely swallowed, and then the fisherman went back to his rods and we walked out to the end of the jetty. By the time we walked back to shore two more european carp were flopping and gasping behind the fisherman and he was back shivering on his stool. "When I was a kid," he said morosely, "You could catch little frogs in the shallows all around Milang. Then the carp arrived and now all the frogs are gone. So I catch the carp and feed them to the pelicans. I'm having fun and doing my bit for the lake." 

We left him reeling in another fish. The pelican had gone to pursue matters of digestion, and a single seagull landed at the smorgasbord behind the fisherman. Up above us the sun made watery promises of burning off the fog and ushering in a bright, if cold, winter day.

Thus went a morning in Milang.