Powelltown Picnic

We'd decided on a day's outing as an early celebration of Nick's birthday, so I packed a picnic early this morning.

(As you can see, the red suitcase is yet to be made over - and I managed to leave the apple tablecloth at home, sadly)!

As much as I would have liked to use my new lizard bag and wide-mouthed thermoses, I hadn't pre-made any soup. 

Plan B was to thermal-cook soup en route, which worked out very well - using the slosh-proof method I had developed last year (this time using a rolled hand towel sitting in the top pot of boiling water).

I made this recipe with a few adaptions - an extra carrot in lieu of celery, a tin each of butter and cannellini beans as well as a small amount of mixed herbs.  I'd used the same recipe previously (without additions or substitutions) but had simmered it on the stove-top and it condensed nicely.  There is no steam release during thermal cooking, so the extra beans thickened the soup wonderfully.

Vaughan is not a fan of soup.  He had noodles instead but all enjoyed fresh home-baked scones with jam and cream - along with minion-made beverages!

We stopped for lunch at a small park in Powelltown, where there is a time capsule due to be opened in 2034-35!

Frilled it's finished!

Last weekend I said I planned to make-over one of our small soft-sided esky bags. You can see the bag as it was, here. The pic is flattering, so you can't really tell how daggy the bag looked. Aesthetics aside, it's a great size for our two wide-mouth thermoses - and as my laundry soaker efforts failed, I decided to make an outer cover instead.

The stash yielded some machine embroidery test pieces my mother had donated to the cause quite some time back. I found three small pieces of lizard print too, also featuring a frilled neck lizard.

All the fabric was already on hand, I just needed to design a suitable bag/cover.  The end product isn't really what I thought I would make.  I hadn't previously made a bag with side panels and this one didn't quite go as planned.  There were various adaptions along the way - as well as unpicking, re-measuring and dark mutterings!  It's just about finished now (but for a few more stitches on the esky lid) and I'm very pleased with how it's turned out!

The top of the esky bag is still visible, so I've (almost) sewn a piece of the main green fabric on the lid and created a new handle which matches those of the bag. 

Pre-sizzled sausages!

We have four Stanley thermoses - all purchased new during a clearance sale, around ten years ago.

The two larger 1.8 litre versions are used often for hot water and at least one is packed as a matter of course(with our beverage case) for most trips.


Our smaller wide-mouth food flasks don't get out and about as often.  They are more likely to be used during winter for soups and from time to time I've made thermos porridge in them.  We went out today as a school holiday finale.  I was expecting lots of people and possible difficulty finding a BBQ, so cooked our sausages and onions at home - then packed our pre-sizzled snags into thermoses.  It was mid-afternoon when we stopped for lunch.  Typically the BBQs were deserted and we could have had our pick of them!

Nick was given a small insulated bag (with corporate logo) and it is just the right size for our smaller Stanley flasks.  The extra layer of insulation is great although white wasn't a fantastic colour choice and the bag is looking pretty grotty. Yes, I'm considering giving it a make-over - stay tuned!

(Almost) 400 finds in 4 Years!

We've just passed our 4th anniversary as geocachers - yep, we started 'caching back in June 2010.

Geocaching had been suggested to me by a colleague, who was a new initiate of the game.

Once home, I urged Nick to research a "gadget" aka GPS unit and we headed out the next day to buy one.  (At that stage Nick was still muttering about the nerdiness of the sport). He and I tried for a cache on the way home.

Our efforts were spectacularly unsuccessful but hugely entertaining as we traipsed about in increasingly soggy marshland. When the water rose above our ankles, we finally admitted defeat - squelching back to the car, then heading home to dry off and re-group!

In spite of that less-than-best intro, our enthusiasm was un-dampened.  We've made many finds since.  You can read about some of our geocaching exploits here. It's been a good way of breaking the journey on long trips, introducing us to little-known spots once in a location - and just generally encouraging everyone out of the house and into the great outdoors, regardless of weather!

Today we logged our 400th find - just over a fortnight after our 4th geocaching anniversary!  Typically it began raining heavily as we signed the log-book, so we retreated to a nearby picnic area for our celebratory picnic and special home-baked rainbow cake. As you can see, there were "official" photos - four takes was all it took for Vaughan to co-operate!

I wasn't going to include photos of our cake but it really deserves a mention, because it was so bright on such a dull day! 

Erin helped colour the batter - Cookie monster blue, Elmo red and something close to Big Bird yellow!  It was super-cheerful!

Windy Woodlands!

We've visited the Woodlands Historic Park a few times, and enjoyed touring the adjoining Living Legends facility also.

The weather was fairly pleasant for previous excursions but it was definitely rather wild today!

On checking just now it seems the recorded wind speed (at the time of our bushwalk) was near gale force.  Yep, Nick and I were very keen geocachers!  Our efforts logged another 13 found caches, bringing our overall tally to 393 - so we are well on track for finding our 400th during our anniversary month.  Hooray!

One cache was no longer accessible as there is an Eastern Barred Bandicoot (EBB) reserve located within the park.  You can read about these endangered animals here.  After walking a bit over 3km, we decided we'd done our dash for the day and returned to the car for a picnic lunch.  A group of Conservation Volunteers were gathered at the picnic area, perhaps set to do some work for the EBBs.

A trio of magpies flew down to supervise our lunch preparations.  During the latter part of our picnic, a strong gust of wind blew food containers, food and other stuff onto the ground.  The magpies were very pleased of some cheese and crackers but a bit ho-hum about the dried fruit!

Murdered marshmallows!

Nick had to work today. He left home around 5:00am. The rest of us slept in - as long as Oscar (the starved) cat deemed appropriate!

We took our time getting ready but once breakfasted and presentable, we ventured out to collect a parcel of mailed goodies and then visit one of our local libraries.

It was a short drive from the library to this lovely park. The ducks greeted us enthusiastically and a couple of crows keep an eye on us from the trees.

Nick and I explored the park a while back but it was new to Vaughan and Erin, who enjoyed hot chocolates (with marshmallows) while chatting with the resident ducks.

When we had all finished our drinks, I stacked up our small collection of picnic gear and we strolled down the track.

Vaughan was keen to paddle in the shallow water but we encouraged him to walk further.  We had wandered around to the other side of the creek and I was taking photos of the paddling ducks when Erin commented that the crows were taking over our picnic!  As we'd eaten all the muffins, I wasn't greatly worried but Vaughan scrambled across the creek to chase them off.  (He really just wanted an excuse for crossing the water at the causeway)!

While he was in hot pursuit, I remembered the marshmallow bag was open, inside the crate.  When Erin and I returned to the table we could see the bag had been breached and there was a trail of marshmallow crumbs on the table!  Vaughan was not impressed, though had a bit of a smirk when he described one crow with marshmallow stuck to it's beak!

Friday fun ...

We haven't been geocaching for a while.  As it was Friday, I made orange poppyseed cakes as well as a batch of hot choc mix so we could enjoy a simple afternoon tea picnic, after school.

It was quite cold, so our hot drinks were much appreciated as we stood admiring the views (after finding our first cache).

We drove on, doing about a 60km loop in total - and finding two more caches, bringing our overall tally to 380. 

We started caching in June 2010 so are keen to find our 400th cache for our 4th anniversary!