Somewhere Down A Crazy River by Robyn Catchlove (subtitled: A spirited life catching love, fish and wisdom) is an engaging autobiography about a woman who embarks on an adventure which starts in sleepy Adelaide in the late 40's and ends with her adopting the robes of a Buddist acolyte - not something she started out to become but as an end result of her life experiences. This is a book replete with verbal imagery which captures the sights, sounds and life of tropical far Northern Queensland during the 70's and 80's.

Catchlove grew up in Adelaide in a solid, loving and supportive family, one that appears to have nurtured her sense of independence and inquisitiveness. Then, in her early 20's, after a short marriage ending in an amicable separation, she leaves Adelaide and works her way up through Australia and lands in Cairns, Queensland. Here she meets Les, who turns out to be the love of her life.

Over the next eight years, having built their own boat, they spend their lives fishing the reefs and waterways along the eastern coast of northern Queensland and the western coast into the Gulf of Carpentaria. During this time they meet a collection of characters both good and not so good, from fisherman and miners to proud native aboriginals. Life was tough, especially for Catchlove, who was caught in a male dominated world and at a time when women had their place - which was definitely not as a captain or senior crewman on a fishing vessel.

She describes with colour and insightfulness the beauty of the land that teems with abundant wildlife. She also describes the frustrations she feels, particularly the lack of intellectual stimulation (as conversations, when they occur, tend to be about fishing and mining), with government bodies, the lives of the natives who have become destitute and the control the mines have over everyday existence.

Catchlove is also a victim of domestic violence, a cycle she tries to break many times but is caught by the myth that, love will see it through and by her faith in human nature. Eventually, she bites the bullet and concludes that stage of her life.

After leaving life on the sea she takes up selling cars (successfully) but she seems to not have any anchors or focus in her life and seems to meander along, that is, until she stumbles upon, Tibetian Buddism. Although she doesn't devote a large part of her writing to this stage of her life it is through Buddism that she finds and becomes at one with herself.

Robyn Catchlove has led a life that not too many people (particularly women) would be able to relate. Many of us with our mainstream lives have probably, at some time, dreamed about just getting away from it all and living the idyllic life of beaches and surf but the reality is, it often comes with its share of hardness, pain and heartbreak.