Monday 31 August 2015

Of clocks and bedside shelves.


When we first bought our van I guess we thought we'd use it for a few years and then trade up. During our first shakedown trip, a gallop up to Brisbane taking in the newly weds of the time in Sydney and then back again, we really fell in love with our little home, and K began upgrading and customising both the internal and external set up to make life easier. Each of these makes it harder to think about starting again in a new home. (A bit like moving house I guess)


K worked for a watchmaker as a holiday job as a teenager, which is why he has a watch from one of the backpackers on the table ready to service. He loves clocks, so one of the first things he did was to put a clock hanging spot out in the annex. The original clock, a souvenir Ford clock of course, still gets hung up as soon as we park the van.
Sometimes it stops. Perhaps it should be replaced. But no!......maybe it is a battery or is it the ants who hide in the warmth of the battery box and short it out. Throw it away. Not likely. It gets cleaned or whatever and off it goes again.

So there is one clock ticking outside and two inside and if he can get away with it the wind up travel clock finds its way onto his beside table as well.  All of these tick at a different time. Drives me mad. At least they don't chime or play music. That might precipitate one of my famous impressions of a nuclear explosion.

Clock, barometer and thermometer rebated into the wall
 between the bed and shower.
And fancy shelf, routed and fitted
with decorative edges.
 
 
There have been other improvements to electrics and water and  other critical functions that I will leave for later but the thing I appreciate most each night and morning is my removable bedside table.

You see I was very short sighted when I chose the left side of the bedroom as mine. In our caravan configuration the bedside unit is on the right. I get the back of the kitchen chairs and a long reach to the table.  I have commented on this unfair distribution of critical bedside real-estate, gently of course, on a number of occasions.

Imagine my delight when after a day or two of mysterious activity involving wood, a router, hooks and other bits of metal I find this beautiful creation next to my side of the bed. Stained, sealed and removable. And I only nagged a little bit.


Removable bedside table
attached to back of kitchen seating

 

 
Life is good!

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move
 

 

 

 

 


 
 
 

Sunday 30 August 2015

Fascination with sunrise.


Sunrises are an integral part of caravan life. Light blasts past the curtains each morning alerting us to the new day. A peek outside can reveal amazing sights. Some places we have camped have treated us to gentle displays of rising colour creeping up out of the land into the sky. A perfect accompaniment to a cup of coffee on the doorstep of the van.

Closer to the equator as we are here, sunrises are almost aggressive, the difference between dark and light measured in just a few minutes. If I have to drive some distance to  a community,  like I will have to tomorrow,  I tend to watch these minutes with some impatience. Light means safer driving.

So I just love it that K stopped to watch and take these photos one morning when he was in Mataranka early to unload stores from the 6am delivery truck.

He's looking across the road towards the bush.


I'll let them speak for themselves.


Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move



Sunrise Mataranka 6.30am


Sunrise Mataranka 6.30am


Sunrise Mataranka 6.37am



Sunrise Mataranka 6.40am

 

 

 

Camp oven, friends and a good yarn.

 
We were invited to a special birthday get together last night. Camp oven dinner and BBQ.
We arrived to find the fire well alight and half a dozen cast iron camp ovens (Dutch ovens) sitting in the coals with more coals on the lids and the most amazing smells filling the air. One of the hands from the station next door to us, in the NT sense of the word next door, is a master of the camp fire feast. He is a fixture at most of the big get togethers here, doing his magic.

Now we have a dutch oven. I use it all the time on the burners or the BBQ. I used to have it on the back of my slow combustion heater in our old house all the time. K bought a cook book to inspire me and I have used lots of the ideas. I have cooked everything from a roast or stew to a damper or scones in it but I am ashamed to say it has never been on hot coals. It may be very un-Australian of me but I am not fond of a campfire near my camp. Where there's fire there's smoke, and I hate smoke.







Getting back to the party.........
People trickled in in their utes and trucks loaded with chairs and eskies. Kids ran around. Drinks, salads and cakes appeared on the table. Yarns were swapped. For once we were "local", as in we live in town even though we haven't been here for 20 years. Other friends had driven 100km to celebrate. Speeches, some more coherent than others, wound up the formal part of the evening and we got down to the serious business of comparing fishing, hunting, flood and snake encounter stories. Good natured laughter rang out at the expense of tourists and newbies to the outback. Serious local issues got chewed over.

Replete and tired we loaded up and drove home, carefully dodging the 'roos on our road, but behind us the party rolled on in the glow of the fire. I guess many were probably there to greet the sunrise.

Got visitors for smoko today. Better get moving.
My cheese scones



Cheers Sue
A Ferg on the Move

Friday 28 August 2015

Outback Inspiration. Or I used to paint once upon a time

In my previous life I painted.

I still do sometimes.


Last year I did pastel portraits of my students as an attendance reward. The paintings are in the library and the students took a book home with their portraits and pictures of the things we had done in class as a memento of the time I had been with them.

But painting on large canvas, which is my preferred option,  is not at all practical in the caravan. As much as I miss it, this activity has to wait until we have a bit more room one day. Beside if I have to move K's clothes out of both sides of the wardrobe to fit paints and canvasses in as well as my stash of yarn,  things might not be so contended around here.

Whilst hunting  through the photo archives I came across these. So I hope you will forgive me for indulging myself in some nostalgia for an art not practiced at the moment.  The originals of these have found loving homes with friends and family so I only have the photos to remember them by.

Devil's Marbles

Cordello Downs Station

Murrumbidgee River

Sunset

The View

 
Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move

Thursday 27 August 2015

Mataranka, my NT home.

 
The old Mataranka sign with termite mound growing around it.

 
I have just realised that I haven't told you about the place we like to call our NT home. This is our fourth tourist season hear at Mataranka in the Northern Territory. We park our caravan here from the end of April until somewhere near the end of November. K works as "Mr Fix It" here at Mataranka Homestead Tourist Park. (A fancy name for a standard outback caravan park with cabins and basic motel rooms) I have worked reception here, but my main work is in the indigenous schools.

Mataranka is on the Stuart Highway 109 km south of Katherine and is a four or five hour drive south of Darwin. We are 1069 km north of Alice Springs.  The town has a general store, supermarket, pub and three fuel outlets, school, health service and police presence. Three caravan parks compete for the grey army traffic.


A long way from anywhere

 In the tourist season we are inundated with caravans. There are close to 200 powered sites in the town and for six to eight weeks of the year these will be full.

Mataranka's claim to fame lies in two things, hot springs and We of the  Never Never.

We of the Never Never is a novel written by Jeanie Gunn who lived for a few months on Elsie Station. It tells about her experiences as a newly married Melbourne girl who came with her husband to manage the station. We of the Never Never was required reading for many school children of my era.



The Elsey Station replica
 
 
We have the replica of the station house here at Mataranka Homestead which was used in the film shot here in 1982. The movie is played here every day over lunch. Some of the parents of the kids I teach are the children in the movie.


Mataranka Hot Springs on a cool
morning with steam rising. 
There are two hot springs here. Mataranka Hot Springs is accessed through Mataranka Homestead caravan park and is  my favourite part of living here. 30 degrees, fresh water and I don't have to clean it. Mind you I do have to share it with millions of tourists.  The best time is in the morning when the air temperature is lower than the water temp and the steam rises into the air over the water. magic.



Little Roper River
The Homestead where we live is surrounded by three rivers, the Waterhouse, the Little Roper and the Roper River.

Boat ride on the Roper River







Bitter Springs
Bitter Springs is on the north side of town and is a stream you can float down. If you take goggles you can see the world under the water. I am blind as a bat with my glasses off so I have to take K's word for this.




We love here it here.

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move.

 
x

Wednesday 26 August 2015

Generosity. Or I have fresh eggs, veggies and a dead snake.

I am always heartened by the generosity of the people who live out here. I think because we are so few we naturally look out for each other.  So tonight I thought I'd show you the wonderful produce that I have been given this week

Last Sunday we met with friends to break bread and encourage each other. Our hostess put on a wonderful spread as usual which went down a treat with a bottle of Western Australian red that K had found in Katherine a few weeks ago. After lunch everyone disappeared into the kitchen garden and came back with fresh broccoli and kale, as well as a reasonable long snake.


 
The snake was dead, cut in half by the shovel that is a necessary tool to carry when you venture into  gardens such as these and, since it was dead, I assume it was not a children's python. I didn't get close enough to check.


Last night I was too bushed to drive back an hour and a bit from the school I was in, so the principal and his wife kindly put me up for the night. They fed me and gave me a bed.  There was buffalo stew cooked in the  slow cooker, rich tender meaty chunks, vegetables and spicy gravy. This morning there was a serve of this stew packaged up for K.


(The buffalo roast we have in the freezer,  and which we are not cooking tonight now, was given to us by one of K's fellow workers who went hunting recently. I love the taste of buffalo but it has a very strong almost grassy smell as it cooks so when it is cooked here the crockpot is banished to the very end of two extension cords.)

I was introduced to the chooks (Australian for hens) all twenty of them who live in a fenced off half a house block with a massive intruder proof night cage. Wild pigs have been known to crash through fences to get to  chooks and eggs, the  camp dogs like fresh chicken, as do the pythons. 

So I have a dozen eggs collected this morning, as well as some vine ripened tomatoes.


Fresh anything costs an arm and leg here so it is especially wonderful to benefit from the generosity of old friends and new acquaintances alike.

Vine ripened tomatoes
 
Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move
 


 

 

 

Tuesday 25 August 2015

Katherine Gorge memories

Last year before we left the Northern Territory to tour in the eastern states and spend time with family we treated ourselves to something special.
We hopped in the ute and drove an hour into Katherine and then another 20 minutes or so out to Katherine Gorge.

Classic Katherine Gorge photo.
Late afternoon
The Gorge has a special place in our hearts. We first visited in November of 1989. I was expecting our youngest son and the other two kids were still in primary school. We didn't own a caravan, so we hired one and packed ourselves and our goods up and headed north from Adelaide.  November is well into the build-up to the wet season so we were treated to spectacular dry electrical storms and it was hot, very hot. We hired canoes and paddled and swam up the river porting the canoes over the rocks between gorges.  Incidentally, the camp area we used  is no longer, as it was wiped away in the flood of 1989. During this flood the tops of the gorge walls were just a series of islands.

It was my first introduction to the NT and even after all of this time the whole experience glows in my memories. That might be one of the reasons that I even listened when K began to wonder about travelling north.

Anyway as I was saying, last year we treated ourselves to the sunset tour and dinner on  Katherine Gorge. Boat trip and short walks through two of the gorges and then dinner while the boat drifted back down stream to the park.

Katherine Gorge just before sunset on a tour
Fresh water crocodiles, numerous birds, lizards  and the most spectacular scenery were accompanied by a commentary from one of the indigenous park rangers. And the sunset was beautiful.

 

Katherine Gorge sunset dinner cruise boat
Tables set up and the BBQ cooking.
Pretty good example of outdoor cooking

We were seated with a couple from France and their mother. It was a fascinating evening, Great food, Great scenery and a priceless insight into this couple's lives.

A good memory.


Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move

Monday 24 August 2015

The morning dance



Moon still in the sky at first light.


We are pretty good  at being together in a small space.

Mornings have a comforting routine. The alarm goes off. K dresses and then clears out to the kitchen end of the van leaving me to complete the important tasks that turn a rumpled mess into a polished adult female. During this process the bathroom of the van is out of bounds to my husband. There simply isn't enough room for two in front of the mirror in the tiny cloakroom. Particularly as I have to be jammed up against the mirror to be sure there is a face to put makeup on. I'm so blind without my glasses that I do this task more by feel than anything else.

View across the park at first light.

Up the kitchen end the coffee machine is doing its thing and breakfast makings are  flying out of my super organised storage locker. K indulges in yoghurt which is now especially good since I am making it myself. ( I still can't understand why anyone would eat the stuff. Cook with it yes. Eat it no.)

Pack a lunch. Make another coffee to go Juggle past each other to the wash basin and off.

Brolgas on the road on a foggy morning


If it is a work day we are up to see the sunrise. Work days start very early here as a reaction to the heat which is coming later in the day. In the tropics the difference between too dark to drive and full light is a matter of minutes. 6.30am dark. 6.45am load up and drive out.

  Fog on the road to work.


While this might read very much like a morning in any other working household, this dance is achieved in a 20ft by 8ft very well appointed box.

Bear in mind that this box might be parked just about anywhere we choose and I reckon life is pretty good.


Cheers Sue
A Ferg on the Move














Sunday 23 August 2015

Just a recipe collection and memories


Nothing serious is getting done around here. There's a V8 race on the TV. So naturally  since we are both "rev-heads"  the bed is configured as a lounge and we are glued to the screen.

At some point one of us is going to have to think about dinner. I'm fresh out of ideas.

I gave away all of the enormous number of cook books collected over the years on the basis that I couldn't fit them in. (I am a cook from memory with whatever is in the pantry and fridge kind of cook I figured I wouldn't use them even if I packed them.)

At times like this there are only two places I go.

One of them is the first book I bought when we were planning the transition from house to caravan. Eva Stovern has a series of books, this is the second, born from extensive travels. I set my first caravan pantry up based on her "30 ingredients." Her advise about kitchen essentials is pretty good too.  I don't regret buying the book and still use some of the recipes. This is the author's official site. Check it out


Caravan cook book by Eva Stevern
30 Ingredients and kitchen essentials.
 

The  other potential source of inspiration is my trusty recipe collection.  This is a little green book that I was given before we were married and still has my maiden name in very neat student teacher printing on the inside cover. I could not bring myself to part with this.
 


Inside its pages are recipes copied from both my grandmothers  who were frugal but amazing cooks, and both my mums (his and mine that is).  There is  a chocolate cake recipe still made by many of the members of the extended family with notes in the margin for conversions to gluten free.
Grandma's pot roast, mock chicken, mustard dressing are copied in neat printing.  Later entries are not so tidy. I can hardly read the crust less quiche. There is a page with the no fail sponge that never works for me. I think you have to measure carefully for this one.

Tucked into the pages and the front and back cover are magazine clippings as well as typed and hand written gems contributed over the years by friends.

It is more a bit of history than a cook book BUT as I flip through  I do spy devilled lamb chops in grandma's handwriting and there are some farm grown chops left in the freezer.

That's sorted. Back to the V8s. Go FORD!




Cheers  Sue

A Ferg on the Move










Saturday 22 August 2015

A tale of bread, sticky date pudding and washing.

Today didn't go as planned.

I had four things on my to do list today; try out the new gluten free bread mix that has arrived in the post, cook gluten free Sticky Date for K, make some more yoghurt and do the washing. After that I was going to go have a swim with the holiday makers and catch up with the caravan gossip for the week.
My first gluten free cob loaf

I read the bread mx instructions last night. I'm really keen to get this working. I found it after some serious research. Most mixes are a batter, this one makes a dough and can be shaped into rolls or a cob loaf.
Gluten free cob loaf risen ready to go into the oven

 A great deal of emphasis is made about the need for accurate measurement of ingredients.
Now I am a chuck it all in from memory cook so naturally my mini kitchen scales were right at the back of the under sink cupboard.  K came in for a cuppa just as I had the whole lot on the floor in front of the fridge.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"Just cooking," said I stuffing everything back in with great care.

Carefully assembling the ingredients I weighed out the flour mix, adding a bit more, still more and some more again. Since the flour was overflowing the small container I had on the scales I concluded that the scales had better be checked for accuracy. Sure enough a 250gm unopened cheese block weighed 50gms on my scales.

What to do?  While pondering this problem I made up the yoghurt and had a cuppa.

Yoghurt made up and sitting in the bench, I fired up the ute and made a 14km trip to borrow scales from the cook at the roadhouse in town and catch up on the town gossip for this week.

Back on track I mixed, kneaded and set the bread to prove in the obvious place. The dashboard of the ute.
Bread rising inside the car on the dashboard.

All went well with the sticky date because I had popped into the supermarket to say hello on my way to get the scales and remembered that I didn't have dates! That was a good save.   AND I had to use a pot as a cake tin because the right tin was ... you guessed it ... under the sink.

Now the oven. Not willing to trust the bread to the BBQ the first time I baked it I decide to use the glass oven which was sitting snugly in its usual storage place. ....You guessed it again.....Under the sink where had put it after I did the photos for the outside kitchen blog.

K breezed in on his way to fix the commercial drier.  "Still cooking," said I stuffing everything back in with great care again and dumping the glass oven next to the outdoor power point in the annex.
Sticky Date Pudding in the glass oven.

Sticky Date in the oven and bread  rising beautifully in the car  I lifted out the twin tub washing machine, pulled out the power cord and ....  No free power point.

So I currently I am sitting on the bed in the caravan waiting for the bread to finish, doing the washing with the twin tub in the shower, plugged into the power point under the bed and using the shower head to fill it.
Washing machine inside the caravan in the shower.
I usually do this when it 35plus degrees outside. 

K has come in from work to have his Sticky Date with cream and have a shower... Ooops.


Gluten Free Sticky Date Pudding and cream



I still have to return a set of kitchen scales.


Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move.



Friday 21 August 2015

When small is just right.

We are watching Better Homes and Gardens TV show tonight. The chippies in the family are not fond of this programme. I think they resent the "just do this and you will have a wonderful...what ever." Like it can be done instantly.


The feature build this week is a house made from a shipping container. At 40ft long it is twice the length of our caravan. So while it is tiny to some it is huge to us. Take a look.

Our bathroom lives in two sections across the back wall. The wardrobe is in the centre, two door with drawers. Perfect for winter clothes, good shirts and my yarn stash. One side has a shower cubicle with a curved sliding door. 

The other side has a cassette toilet and hand basin. Getting in to the toilet room is a bit of an art. Sideways shuffling is necessary but once in....
K has added a full length mirror to the toilet door, and nifty stick on storage baskets to the mirror above the hand basin.



Over the door towel hangers allow towels to hang on the wardrobe doors.


Unused towels are rolled in the shelf above the bed.


All the mod cons.


Who needs a 40ft long palace?


Cheers Sue


A Ferg on the Move
 

 
 

Thursday 20 August 2015

Staying in touch. Or the things I have to do to get mobile phone coverage.

I recently spent a week in a community with no mobile phone coverage. This made me very conscious of how dependent I am. We have family spread over half of Australia and use SMS to chat, email and Facebook to see the grandkids, new cars, holiday and event photos and  just plain gossip.
Banking, online shopping and of course blogging is conducted over the internet. No landlines here.


At one of the schools I visit regularly there is one spot on the basketball court where "one bar" is possible. There is often a huddle of staff and community members jockeying for position to get reception and download something.  Strangely reception will happen elsewhere for no apparent reason and for random amounts of time. One day at this school my phone beeped at me in the class room. I was so shocked I turned quickly next to a chair and landed in an undignified heap on the floor. Later on yard duty I was treated to a replay by the year one kids, in language, complete with very convincing acting.

Here where we are parked at the moment reception can be very patchy. K has been known to have an extension USB cable attached to his internet dongle. The dongle lives on the roof and the cable come down from the roof vent  to the computer on the table. Placement is critical. I am unpopular if I use the vent for its original purpose, light and ventilation that is.

I could get lots of exercise roaming the caravan park looking for the best place to download  a book to read.


Bats on the move just before sunset.
 
 
At our daughter's NSW farm phone reception happens at the gate. That is for everybody else who can lean on the gate ordering Chinese dinner or something. Not me! My phone refuses to give me any bars until I am standing in the middle of the road preferably first thing in the morning...... Something to do with signal skip I've been told.

Picture me, early morning checking for emails and SMS or doing the banking standing in the middle of a dirt road in rural NSW hoping that I spot the dust cloud indicating approaching vehicles. Or more importantly that no one comes along to see me in the middle of the road in my jammies with a phone held to my ear.

On a more serious note, I am grateful for the technology that allows me to live in wonderful places in our grand land and still stay connected to the people I love.

No need for mobile phone here. What K does while I download a book.
Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move.




 

Wednesday 19 August 2015

Home is where the heart is. Or wherever the road takes us.

So the conversation goes like this......

At home on the farm in NSW

"Where do you live?"
"In the caravan," I answer.
"No. Where do you really live?"
"In the caravan," I answer.
"Ok where is home?" they ask with some level of frustration.
"In the caravan," I answer with a grin, settling down for another lengthy explanation of our lifestyle.


At home with visitors in the Northern Territory
It is true that for the past few years our registered address is at the tourist park here in Northern Australia where we spend 7ish months working. It is also true that we have NT drivers licences and the vehicles are registered here but that is a life style choice rather than an anchor.

At home helping with the renovations

Home for us is our caravan. After a day out in Katherine NT, Goulburn NSW, Brisbane QLD, Broome WA (you get the idea) we go home to our tiny house.


At home behind the rain water tank


We are at peace inside its walls or sitting under its annex. Everything we need is here, wherever here happens to be.

Home is where the heart is and with the one who has your heart. (That's you K. I think I just earned  a coffee in bed one morning.)






At home with K

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move