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

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

 

 

 

 

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

 

Dragging our home behind us

Getting to anywhere quickly from the outback town in Northern Australia in which we have chosen to spend the working part of our year is quite an adventure.
I'm planning a trip over to country NSW to help out when a new grandchild is born. The aim is to get there a few days before baby can be expected to put in an appearance.



I'm quite happy to fly although I have to drive or sit in a bus for five hours going north to the airport in Darwin, sit in the plane for four and a half hours, and someone has to do a four and a half hour round trip to collect me. Depending on flight times thus can necessitate a motel stay in Darwin.






To drive I head south and then east for 3,700ish kms, nearly four full days, very, very long way to go in a hurry. And I have to pay for accommodation each night. Dollar wise there is not much difference between the two options.









What a contrast with our usual travel routine.



Normally when we travel this wonderful country we drag our house behind us, at our own pace, no time constraints.

River side camp near Camooweal QLD

At the end of a day of driving we don't have to push ourselves to get to the next town before our motel reception shuts and the dinner service is over. We just find a lovely spot to park, maybe a roadside bay, a spot near the railway line, a river side camp or even a site in a caravan park and set up. Mostly we don't unhook the car but we do put on the brakes, put down the jockey wheel and the stabiliser legs.



Caravan just fits under this shade shed near Woomera SA

We lift out the door step, open the windows and turn the fridge over to gas, then we are all set.

Quick cooking can be done in the microwave, or if we want burners the stove set is in the back of the ute. Sometimes if I have loaded up the crock pot to cook as we travel there is a hot meal all ready. Coffee or wine, a chat with any neighbours who have joined us,  a great sunset and our own shower before bed.

Shady camp just south of Broome.

Beats a motel any day.


Now I still have to decide. Drive or fly?



Cheers Sue
A Ferg on the Move.

Friends without fences

I reckon if you sit still long enough in one place on the Stuart Highway (the road up the centre of Australia from south to north) the whole of the Grey Army (retired people travelling Australia) go past sooner or later.



Australian entertainment complete with didgeridoo, guitar and mouth organ

This  belief was  reinforced for me when, whilst  sitting having dinner last night sharing one of the fantastic staff specials here at the caravan park and listening to the live music, we  were delighted to be greeted by a couple we haven’t seen for over two years.  These two were regulars here at the park and we have met them in other places on our travels. The rest of the evening was passed catching up with each other’s lives, and planning when we might meet next.

Further around in the quiet dining area was a table of five couples we know both by name and their caravan and car set ups, and whom have become part of our travel family.

Mataranka Hot Springs where the problems of the world
are solved and friends for life made.

 

City life has changed. When I was a child we knew all the names of the children in the street, knew their parents by name and were welcomed most of the time into each other’s houses.

I am quite ashamed to confess that during the two years we were in our last house the only time I interacted with our neighbours, other than a friendly wave as I drove out each morning, was when they were packing up their camper to go on holidays. We agreed to do the neighbourly thing and keep an eye on the place.  Even sadder than this was that I didn’t know my neighbour’s names. Although we did know the name of the two dogs. This important piece of information was gleaned from the “Be quiet *****,” that was uttered late at night and early in the morning.

At this stage our social life was much more likely to consist of formal dinners out, and large gatherings of friends and family from other places in town than a friendly chat over the fence or a block barbecue. On our street people lived inside their fences and did everything possible not to be overlooked by the neighbours.

Later that year we moved with the caravan into a city caravan park. The idea was to iron out any issues before we embarked on our changed life.

What a contrast!  The van wasn’t even properly in our spot before there were people over perusing our rig, discussing the proper way to anchor the annex against strong winds and checking out K’s wind generator.  K really prefers to set up witout spectators so his usually ready smile was a bit  strained after an hour or so, and I had exhausted our supply of bought biscuits by then but we had made friends.

Later that day we explored the park and to our delight found old neighbours who had been next door to us in Darwin the July before.

Sunset on Mindil beach Darwin, with friends

So I wonder why it is so easy to make friends on the road. Does it have something to do with fences, both literal and figurative I wonder.

 

 

Cheers Sue

 

A Ferg on the Move.