Butcher's scary shark encounter

Steve Bateman talks of his encounter with a bull shark.

Rob Williams

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A NOW-famous Goodna butcher has revealed a marauding bull shark forced him to hide inside his flood-ravaged store for hours.

But Steve Bateman said the nightmare only really began once he ventured back into the rising water.

Mr Bateman made international headlines last week when he reported seeing a bull shark swimming past his butcher's shop in Goodna's St Ives Shopping Centre.

But it was a brown snake swimming towards him an hour after the shark left that truly frightened him.

“Goodna was turned into an aquarium that day,” Mr Bateman said.

As the floodwaters rose last Wednesday Mr Bateman decided to visit his store to open its large glass doors so water could flow through.

The only problem, the water was already up to his chest.

“I was swimming through the car park towards my store and a guy in an SES boat picked me up and told me there was a bull shark in the shopping centre,” Mr Bateman said.

“He dropped me off at my store; I waded in, opened the door and then saw a long dark shadow and a fin swim past.

“It was probably 10 metres away from me. It looked about six feet long.

“But that was not the scariest part.

“I was hiding in the shop for a while hoping the shark had moved on.

“When I left there was a two-metre long brown snake swimming right towards me.

“My head was the only thing above water and the snake looked pretty distressed.

“I was crapping myself;. I thought it would bite my face.

“But it swam straight past me.

“There were spiders around too, just floating by.”

Bateman's Bargain Butcher is three kilometres from the Brisbane River, which broke its banks and destroyed the eastern suburbs of Ipswich on January 12.

Ipswich politicians backed up Mr Bateman's story, who has owned the butcher shop for 17 years.

Several other residents also spotted a bull shark. Mr Bateman did not have flood insurance.