mutteringhousewife

Adventures in cooking, travel and whatever else I feel like musing on

Category: holidays

January 16, 2013

A life on the Ocean Wave

We had lunch at Berowra Waters Inn.

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When I say at, I mean moored outside. They’re closed on Wednesdays. And as if we’d go in there with the Horror, even if we were having a pink fit.

I started the morning with a swim to a tiny beach near where we were moored for the night, in Refuge Bay. As I stepped on to the sand, narrowly avoiding a tiny stingray, I thought about the first white settlers to Australia. They would have stepped on to a little beach like this, looking up a steep scrubby slope covered in completely unfamiliar plants, no grass, no animals, no fruit or flowers. All the pink stemmed trees twisted into fantastic shapes, the scream of cicadas in the air and the mad cackle of kookaburras. They would have felt so very far from home.

Anyway, swimming is terrific from a houseboat. You can just dangle your feet, dip in, find different spots to jump from the boat, or swim to shore to explore. “Look out, Mummy’s making a bid for freedom!” my husband shouted.

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Of course I wasn’t, I knew they could run me down.

I’ve rather liked the challenge of bringing all our own food. We had sausages on the barbeque the first night. Chicken nuggets that I’d made last week and frozen, these looked like a bag full of damp sawdust when defrosted, but barbecued up nicely. I even managed mashed potatoes to go with, it isn’t too hard to mash them with a fork. I’m finding that my ankles are being gnawed on, so I’d better start preparing deconstructed sushi for tonight’s dinner pretty smartly. All this open air makes one EXTREMELY hungry.

So overall, this has been rather fun. I’d even consider doing it again, although possibly with a slightly bigger boat and someone else’s children.

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January 15, 2013

Things to do on a Houseboat

You’d be surprised how many things there are to do on a houseboat.
Laps. The kids discovered very early that you can circumnavigate the boat due to narrow ledges along the outsides. You can vary this by going counterclockwise or over the top. I had to put my foot down at climbing through the windows.
Counting jellyfish. The Moose said he had to stop counting because his tongue was sore, but he said he got up to six hundred. They’re quite large, and I expect to see Spongebob in amongst them with his net. We wonder if they’ll sting, but no one wants to volunteer to find out.

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Fishing. There was great excitement yesterday afternoon when the fire bucket made a bid for freedom. A houseboat isn’t very nippy on its feet, so we made several circuits of it before we got close. It was taking on water and starting to look very sad before the Moose reached it with the boat hook and dragged it safety. His greatest triumph.

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Reading. While others look at the scenery, I’m reading a fascinating book about the history of double entry accounting. Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it, it’s excellent. Called Double Entry, it’s by Jane Gleeson-White, go and buy a copy now.
And finally, steering the boat. It’s a bit exciting, there’s a handsome wooden steering wheel and no rudder, just a tiny engine off the back. So when you first start out you make series of elegant swoops across the river, it takes some time to get used to. However, we’re not going too much faster than a snail with the ague, so not too much harm can be done.
Now Ho for a buoy for the night. We’re not very good at dropping anchor yet, I’m surprised no one’s lost a finger.

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January 14, 2013

Houseboat Holiday

My dear husband planned a holiday for this week that he wouldn’t tell us about. I suspect it was because it was an outing I would purse my lips about, and he was kind of right.

I guessed it was a houseboat when he said there would be no power points and a gas fridge, and when he started collecting together fishing gear. The first thing I thought when I saw it was that I should have brought more alcohol. Then I wondered which child I’d be compelled to throw overboard first? But after we’d talked the office into giving us more pillows and doonas and toilet paper, it started looking quite cosy. “What do you think?” asked Captain Casey (actually, he’s a Lieutenant Colonel). “Aargh, I should have brought rum”, I said. “And a parrot”, added the Horror.

There are plenty of nooks and crannies in which I can hide from the kids on the boat. The kitchen is far better equipped than the cabin at our last holiday. I’m looking forward to seeing my plus six foot husband cram himself into the minus six foot bed. We’ve just done a circuit of Dangar Island, which looks very pretty but would be an annoying commute. Now we’ve stopped to fish, and I’m wondering how long it’s going to take the kids to notice the rocking motion of the stationary boat and throw up. They’re fairly excited about possibly catching something edible, or a jellyfish, so may not. It doesn’t bother me.

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It may not be so bad after all. Aargh, me hearties.

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January 4, 2013

Holiday activities

I’m sitting on one if those balconies that seem to be made for a durrie and a Vodka Cruiser. I, however, am drinking a glass of AC/DC wine and eating what I want to say are activated almonds, but they’re not.

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The kids are having one if those holidays people lament as they gnash their teeth paying for little Brayden’s immersion French camp in Gstaadt. Their daily activities consist of riding their bikes the fifty metres to their cousin’s caravan, jumping on the jumping pillow, making movies of each other on the Moose’s iPad;

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And messing about in the river. The river is only waist deep in most places, neck deep under The Rope. I thought I’d pop out with them this afternoon to see what they got up to on the river. The Moose thoughtfully brought our little inflatable boat for me to recline on. It wasn’t until we were out on the water that I realised he’d only brought one oar. You can go around in some pretty tight circles with one oar, but it’s not much use as a motive force.

So the main thing they do on the river is climb a tree on the opposite bank, walk out on the overhanging branch and swing into the water using the provided rope. You can do this pretending to be Gollum, pretending to be an acrobat, pretending to be an old man having a heart attack, pretending to be a chicken that your cousin is shooting out of the tree. Hours of fun.

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The other fun thing is to go to the Sinking Sands and corkscrew yourself into the mud. That, apparently is also hours of fun, punctuated by making yourself hairdos and moustaches out of seaweed.

I wonder how I’m going to lure them back for dinner? I’m only offering stir fried chicken and couscous, they may get a better offer elsewhere. They might be making friends with people with a BBQ…

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January 3, 2013

Kitchen Limitations

It’s a bit rude. We’re staying in a caravan park some kilometres from the nearest takeaway, and here is the cooking equipment with which our apartment is supplied:

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A microwave that can fit a small breakfast bowl into it and a tiny electric frypan.

Last night we had broccoli pasta. I generally only use my microwave at home for defrosting meat if I’ve forgotten that at some point I’ll need to cook dinner that day. If you want to cook broccoli pasta in a miniature microwave, this is what you do. Half fill a small breakfast bowl with dry pasta, then pour some boiling water to come up just under the level of the pasta. Slosh a tiny bit of olive oil over the top and add a little bit of salt. Place a layer of chopped broccoli over the top. Microwave on high for five minutes. Stir and let it cool for a couple of minutes unless you want your lips to fuse together. Top with Parmesan shaved with the Microplane you’ve had the foresight to bring from home. Repeat for the number of people you’re attempting to feed. You won’t be eating all together, but that’s a given because there’s only four chairs in the apartment.

Tonight it’s a meal that has become quite popular with the kids. Deconstructed sushi. I started making this after realising that there must be some kind of secret Japanese glue holding bought sushi rolls together, because I can’t do it. I serve a couple of bowls of short grained rice seasoned with mirin, with bowls of chopped up cucumber, carrots and capsicum, also a bowl of shredded seaweed for that sushi effect. I’ll generally also serve some chopped stir fried salmon or sliced Japanese style omelette, which is just regular omelette with a teaspoon of sugar and a splash of soy sauce. Everyone helps themselves and a jolly time is had by all.

I don’t have any salmon, because when we stopped at the nearest IGA on the way down here, they hadn’t restocked with that kind of thing after Christmas. I do have eggs, but I’m going to have to do them two at a time, because there are no mixing bowls, they’ll be stirred up in coffee mugs. That’s OK, because I don’t think the frying pan will fit anything bigger in it.

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I think I may have reached the limits of my creativity. Tomorrow night we’ll have to go to the Fisho’s, and then perhaps we’ll have to resort to two minute noodles. When we get home I’m making a roast. Or possibly a soufflé.

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January 2, 2013

The Trad Coast Holiday

Nothing fancy. You strap a luggage pod on the car, load up the kids and beach towels and most of your kitchen gadgets and head for the coast. It’s a very Australian summer holiday. The kitchen gadgets bit adds a touch of Inner West, but the principle is the same.

We’re headed for the South Coast, where my brother and his brood are already ensconced in a caravan park by the sea. They already have a gang of old school friends and new caravan park friends down there, but we’re horning in anyway, it’s difficult to get the cousins together. The rain is pouring down and I realise that I’ve made all the kids pack jackets, but have neglected to do so myself. We stop at a cafe on a very scenic lookout that is completely obscured by fog. The Muffet and Horror have vanilla and caramel milk shakes respectively. The Moose has vanilla and bull ant, a new flavour created specially for him.

I thought the idea of having electronic devices in the car was to keep the kiddies quiet. That’s what I’ve always heard. Well, not if they’re playing Monopoly on the iPad, that’s just as noisy as the paper version, only the Horror can’t throw it when he starts losing. I wish they’d play some kind of killing game, like those kids people are always complaining about when they’re reminiscing about how well behaved they were back in the good ole days.

As soon as we turn into the caravan park the kids leap from the moving car and disappear for half an hour. We find our accommodation, not cabins this time, but the freshly renovated apartments that are small but perfectly formed. When all the beds are unfolded there isn’t any floor space, but the bathroom is huge. From the balcony I can see the Horror organising all the little kids on the jumping pillow into some kind of bull rush game. There are six assorted children in various states of dampness eating chips on our lounge. I’ve sent dear husband off to the nearest bike shop to get the Horror’s Christmas bike amended. It came in a box, and I managed to get it into bike shape, but the handlebars are clearly and irretrievably on backwards, and they need professional help.

I think it may be cider o’clock.

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December 31, 2012

Jamberoo on New Year’s Eve

Not a Jamboree, that’s those twelve thousand Scouts converging on Queensland today and tomorrow. Jamberoo, where you control the action, the water park down the South Coast. That’s where we took the kids today.

I’ll pass lightly over the cheap shots, the astonishing variety of tummies and all those tattoos on display. All I’ll say is that if you’ve got a tattoo that’s over twenty years old, it’s going to be a blur unless it’s a very strong pattern. Also, if you’re going to tattoo the names of your children onto your skin, don’t put a border around them because if you then have another, you’ll have to have some laser work done and the next tattooist may not use the same font as the previous one. That’s all.

It’s a terrific family day out, there’s lots to do for little kids, for medium sized kids, and not so much for teenagers, which means there’s not that slightly antisocial horseplay you get with a lot of teenagers around. The grounds are lovely, with lots of shade and a large swathe of grass for you to spread your towels out on and park your esky at. I would highly recommend packing an esky (one with wheels), so you can avoid that deep fried stuff with yellow powder sprinkled on it that these places of amusement seem to specialise in. We brought a whole lot of water (the water out of the taps isn’t potable), cheese and vegemite rolls made last night (I’m sure I’ve blogged about these, anyway, the white bread recipe from Friday, roll it out after the first rise, spread it with Vegemite or cheese, slice it and roll it, rise again, bake), cut up watermelon, nuts and biscuits (Anzacs and ginger nuts). That pretty much did us.

There’s a variety of things to do. There’s a wave pool, a very wet kids playground with buckets of water tipping over them, water guns, and lots of little slides, one of those river circuits with inflatable rings, some big slides. The Taipan was probably my favourite, you and four of your personal friends or offspring load into an inflatable round raft and get shoved down a very twisty covered slide. The Funnelweb is their latest attraction, you’re loaded into a raft, pushed down a covered slide with no light and ejected into a huge funnel, where you twist and slip down to the vortex and get spat out. The kids loved this one, but said landing in the funnel hurt their buttocks, they may want to tweak that aspect of the ride. I didn’t go on it because I already have enough excitement in my life. The Moose said it made him feel a little ill.

They also really loved Jump Off the Rock. There’s a cliff over a five metre deep pool and you have three choices, the five metre jump, the three metre jump, and a slide for the slightly more risk averse among the crowd. I enjoyed watching this very much, the kids like to have someone to say “yes, I did see you do a triple corkscrew, you’re so clever”. Even the Horror managed the five metre jump, he appears to have conquered his fear of heights. The key to this jump is to take it at a run. Almost everyone who tiptoed to the edge to peer over chickened out. Something the lifeguards have evidently noted is that if you have a person of foreign appearance wearing street clothes instead of swimmers taking the slide, they will need rescuing. I saw it twice. I wonder what exactly they were thinking? That water I’ll be landing in after a five metre descent will be shallow enough for me to stand up in? Possibly. Both guys that did this looked very surprised in that brief moment between surfacing and thrashing their arms around then sinking like a stone. Both times the lifeguard was in the water as they landed.

You can have a full and action packed day if your kids are between, say, eight and fifteen. If your kids are younger, you may want to come with another family with similar sized sprogs so you can share the guarding of the various kiddie pools. If your kids are older, you may wish to leave them at home, or rope them into supervising the younger ones. Either way, it is fun to go with other families, everyone keeps dividing into different groups and meeting up throughout the day all over the place. During the afternoon the road surfaces get extremely hot, I just told the kids to harden up so I expect that over the next week the entire soles of our feet will be peeling off. It was too complicated to leave your thongs at the top, then fight back through the queue to retrieve them. Might be worth it for littlies though. Take your long sleeved rashies, this is not the kind of place you go to show off your breast enlargements or your months of hard work at the gym.

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Here’s the Moose drying off. We’re all going to need a rest day tomorrow, especially judging by the appalling headache inducing dreck “music” thumping through our neighbour’s fence at this early hour. Hope you have a Happy New Year.

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October 8, 2012

Paradise Palms Golf Resort

Yes, I am back home and having great difficulty with it not being thirty degrees and not driving a Mercedes any more. I thought I’d wrap up my holiday adventures with a review of the resort we stayed at for the last week, as it was a bit … unusual.

After discussing it with husband and sister and sister’s husband, we decided that the Paradise Palms Golf Resort had been built by someone who wanted to build a beautiful and luxurious resort that would be perfect for families. He then went broke and the place was taken over by people who had previously only run caravan parks. That conjecture pretty much sums up our experience, although it doesn’t explain the restaurant, which I’ll get to.

The rooms and fittings were just beautiful. They were self contained, so had excellent kitchenette with granite topped island bench, a decent sized dinner table, and their own washing machine and dryer. Attached to the excellent kitchen was a snarky little note saying that we’d better wash up and put away the crockery before we left, or there’d be a nasty surprise on the bill. To aid us in washing up there was a single sachet of dish washing liquid. The surly girl at reception informed us that if we wanted more, it was fifty cents per sachet. See what I mean? There was a lot of stuff like that. A full ashtray on our balcony. A thick layer of dust on the wooden venetians. Yes we do have four channels of Fox, but you can only have two. Take your own rubbish down to the car park, if you make us do it at the end of your stay we’ll charge you.

The resort wasn’t walking distance to any shops, and yet didn’t have its own shop or offer a shuttle to nearby towns. It had two pools, but you had to hire beach towels. The mini golf and kids playground were terrific, kept our kids entertained all week. They had a very large jumping pillow that I had to try, despite my ankle and knee joints shouting “what the hell do you think you’re doing?”. It was surprisingly tiring, even the kids thought so, and not at all like a trampoline.

The restaurant was another study in what on earth. They appeared to have a top chef and someone with many clues writing the menu and drinks list. Then hired any old random walking by as waiters. My sister and I ordered some afternoon cocktails from the inventive looking list, then watched as a middle aged man with shaky hands clearly had his first attempt at making a cocktail ever, reading off a set of instructions, then mucked it up half way through and had to start again. Soon after we watched a waitress wander past holding some half empty jugs of juice, navigate around a tall chair piled with cushions, lose her balance a little and tip a copious amount of juice into the cushions, look thoughtfully at the chair for a bit, then move on with her life. My morning muesli didn’t come with a spoon. And yet the food was uniformly delightful.

So I would commend it as a great place to stay with kids if you have your own car, beach towels, washing powder and dish washing liquid. You may even be able to make up the bill with a stint at the cocktail bar.

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October 6, 2012

The Wedding

One thing that weddings really emphasize is that for better or for worse, families are forever. You may only see your cousins occasionally, you may only interact with your aunt on Facebook, but you’ve known them their whole lives and they’ve known you. And then, after buying a house together and having three kids, one decides to marry his girlfriend and you all get together and get a bit sentimental about being in such a great family.

This wedding was a bit unusual in that although it was in Cairns, nobody attending was actually from Cairns. The happy and very attractive couple are from Darwin, other family members and friends came from Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, and one very dedicated friend from Tasmania. Which made the rather excellent turnout a testament to how fond we are of Nathan and Fiona.

Of course it was a beautiful wedding. The setting was terrific, the ceremony conducted by the most enthusiastic celebrant I’ve ever seen. I half expected him to start auctioning off the bridesmaids afterwards “two hundred I have, two hundred, two hundred, can I get two fifty”… Photos ensued, and most fortunately there was a conveniently located mini golf course close enough you could throw a can of Fourex at it to entertain the kiddies until dinner. I amused myself counting the number of people mistakenly congratulating the groom’s identical twin. I lined up and congratulated him myself.

There were many good things about the reception. All the kiddies had a bag of colored pencils and a coloring book to keep them busy, and there were a lot of them, all really well behaved. The best man commented that the reception had a bit of a daycare feel to it. The take home gifts were personalized M&Ms, which also kept the kids going, and coldie holders with the wedding details on it. This pleased both myself and my husband. He likes to bring home these things as souvenirs, and had his eye on one that featured crocodile coitus that was a lot more adventurous than that which we witnessed yesterday, so he won’t need to buy it after all. We particularly loved the photo booth, every wedding should have one.

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The food was great, the music was decent and often performed by a young lady who also sang before the wedding, she must have been exhausted at the end of the night. Unlike the Horror from Outer Space, who decided he’d be having his usual bedtime, thanks. As we were staying in the same building this was an easy request to fulfil, then his brother and sister were able to dance the night away with their cousins and second cousins and great aunts in law and various other partial relations we were unable to determine on the night.

Thanks Fiona and Nathan for inviting us to your wedding, it was a beautiful thing.

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October 4, 2012

Cairns Tropical Zoo

I’m pretty sure this is a photo of crocodiles having sex.

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I took some better shots with my proper camera, and one can never be sure, but it is the springtime.

Cairns Tropical Zoo is a cute little zoo a couple of minutes up the road from the resort we’re staying at. It has the usual assortment of marsupials, and some random fluffy goodness, reading from right to left cotton topped tamarins, a red panda, more tamarins, and some lemurs (King Julian!). Then there is a pretty good reptile house, and they were feeding them when the Horror and I went through, but he was so fixated on reading the signs and doing them in order that he wouldn’t let me watch a keeper being leapt all over by a big green frog.

Also crocodiles. I have a theory that the reason every wildlife park in this part of the world has crocodiles is that to get some you just dig a pond and leave the gates open one night. You lose a few ducks this way, but you get an exhibit that every overseas tourist wants to see. Actually, most of them seem to have a couple that have been rehomed after stalking fishermen or eating the dog of a local councillor. The exhibits at this zoo were pretty big on the whole and were kept in breeding pairs, which results in the kind of exhibit we were treated to today. The Horror was more interested in what looked like a very long thin fairly obviously plastic snake on a fence in between two exhibits. This being Far North Queensland, of course it was real. Then we had the crocodile feeding, which I think has that old fashioned are we going to see someone seriously maimed today kind of feel. I love it. I got some good shots too, I’ll have to put together a Leaping Crocodiles series when I get home, after I’ve finished all the washing, restocked the cupboard and ironed the summer uniforms.

We did miss the bird and python shows, but they let you come back for free the next day, so that’s how we’ll be filling in time tomorrow morning before tizzying up for The Wedding.

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