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!

Focus on fuel efficiency!

During our ten-plus years together, Nick and I have owned several cars.

On reviewing the archives it seems we've bought a replacement vehicle every two years. Of course, we chose to buy Elmer Fudd but all our other car purchases were due to necessity rather than choice.

When we merged our households, I owned a Holden Apollo and Nick had the blue Commodore. My car, Kitt (named due to my fondness for the Knight Rider car), was slightly more fuel efficient and therefore used more often.

Sadly Kitt was written off in 2006 and we had limited funds available for a replacement.  The best we could do at the time was a green Hyundai (top left).  What a glamour! Despite it's bargain price, it served us quite well for almost two years and is remembered fondly.   For some considerable months it was driven with a stick wedging the driver's window open/closed and the stick would work loose as we drove, resulting in window crashing down and driver/passengers jumping/swearing etc!

We traded the green Hyundai for a red one in 2008.  The red car was part of a deceased estate and had received very little use.  We hadn't expected to get such a good bargain, though the low price may been due to the fact that it smelled very strongly of wet dog (or worse)!  In any case it was definitely a step up, not least for the fact that the windows stayed in place without the need for a supporting stick!

The red Hyundai was well used, travelling many kilometres up and down the NSW Central Coast.  It was even put into service as a camping vehicle for our early trips!  It reached the end of it's life in 2012, shortly before we relocated to Victoria.  The timing was less-than-best as there was already considerable stress without car drama - but we are used to that! 

Nick sourced the green Ford Laser as a replacement and it became our "menagerie car" for the drive South. 

Mintie (as that car was known) broke down last week.  The expected cost of repair far exceeded the value of the vehicle, so once again we were car hunting.

A new car wasn't really on our agenda but after researching more thoroughly it was a much better option than the alternatives - and so we collected our brand-new Ford Focus this morning.  It should serve us well into the future!

The blue Commodore was with us for over six years before it was traded in October 2010 for Elmer Fudd.  We love our Fudd truck but we don't take him everywhere cos ...  well, he drinks - a lot! 

No doubt you'll see a lot of the Focus because as well as being Nick's commuter car it will be used for more fuel-efficient adventuring, closer to home.

Misty Mountain Munching!

Since returning home from Yowah, Vaughan's been asking about the mountains we can see on our way to and from school.

We packed a sausage sizzle picnic today and headed up "into the sky" for a late lunch.  Wow! 

Nick and I have previously visited the memorial cross at Mount Macedon on a fine day but everything was a bit more magical today.

We (mostly) enjoy al fresco dining in all kinds of weather, throughout the year - but this was our first misty picnic!

After lunch we walked a short distance to the cross, doing a geocache along the way.

It was a puzzle cache so we had to decode the co-ordinates, which prompted us to read more of the signage about the history of the cross and reserve.

We solved the co-ordinates for another cache but decided against looking for it, given the mist was even thicker further down the mountain where we needed to look! Everyone was starting to feel cold by that stage anyway, so it was a good time to head home.

Dinner's done!

Well, as you can see some of our dinner was overdone. Less coals, more foil and a greater level of supervision would have all helped!

I only have two sizes of camp oven though - very small and quite large, so we had to improvise.

Often we cook vegetables in with the meat but I wasn't keen to drop them in on the marinade. The vegies in the small camp oven were fine, it was the foiled packs that didn't fare so well. There were no real complaints and I actually liked the slightly charred, smoky corn!

The pork was very nice but there wasn't much flavour of the marinade through the meat and I'm not sure we'd bother again.  I reckon the netting got a lot of the benefit! Possibly we could do a basic rolled shoulder another time and serve it with some of my home-made chutneys, which would be just as tasty and far less messy!

Nick cleaned the camp oven of all the honey/soy/marmalade toffee last night and it came off a lot easier than expected - hooray!

Happy Mothers Day!

I've had a lovely day and received lots of Mothers Day gifts, cards, calls and wishes.  We stayed home together and did some much-needed organisation at a laid-back pace.

Among my various gifts was this dump-shop find.  It's a fire-box on legs.  Well, that's how I describe it!  Obviously it's not glamorous but I saw it's potential when I first spotted it - and $10 was a bargain price!  Nick lit our first fire in it today, around lunchtime and stacked up the wood to create lots of coals.  By 3:00pm we were ready to start cooking.

What are we cooking?  We're hoping it will be something special.  It looked good on Nick's latest 4WD Action DVD.  Roothy made a marinade of honey, soy and marmalade.  He added some chilli powder also.  We aren't as heat tolerant, so scaled back the chilli but kept the other proportions the same - equal thirds. I marinaded a rolled pork shoulder roast in the mix while the coals were being generated. 

It smells great, so fingers crossed it will be a taste sensation - as cleaning the burnt marinade off the camp oven will be a mission!