Category: Trying new things

Our inaugural family camping adventure

/ Renae / 4 Comments

I grew up camping. Even though Hubs can’t believe I could ever be so tough and not-princess-like to “rough it”, as a kid it was always an adventure and there was always fun to be had no matter what. Can I help it that, as an adult, I’d rather have a flushing toilet instead of having to squat, and a hot water to shower in, instead of a cold bucket of water to splash over me? And that I’d prefer a tent over a swag? (Who wouldn’t?? Seriously??)

Anyway, a friend of ours who has organised a few 4WD days with us was keen for a trip to stay at Lawn Hill National Park (check out the map of Qld to the right of that page – we actually couldn’t be any further from Brisbane if we tried!) and we were SUPER keen too, so he booked the campsites (there aren’t many there and they book up fast!) and we (I) offered to organise the food for everyone (7 adults, 2 kids, 3ish days). It was all booked and we were enthused. I spent a couple of days getting the food organised, as well as eskys and all camping paraphernalia I could think of (thank you google).

We planned to leave on the Thursday whenever we could get away, and meet the others up there late Friday night (aka we would see them early Saturday morning). Hubs was on night shift Wednesday night and I spent all of Thursday morning getting everything ready to pack in the car. Of course, out of the all the days to be late, Hubs didn’t get home til 9:45am (he’s usually home by 8:30am) and I informed him that everything was ready so if he was keen, we could “just pack the car” and leave asap, instead of him having a couple of hours sleep first. He was happy to be persuaded so after a shower and coffee, he got to packing. This took about 2 hours all up by the time we fit everything in, and this was the end result! (This is obviously on the road.) (Oh yeah, and we borrowed a canoe for the weekend…)

Gosh there’s so much to tell about this trip but I don’t want this post to be too wordy! Our camera batter died on the second day and my phone was dead so we had to rely on our friends to take photos which I copied over last night. But after 4 days of camping, we neglected to get a photo of our tent set up, which is a shame as we were quite proud of ourselves that we managed to set the tent up first try after never having done it before and only ever seeing the tent up once just before we bought it for $70 at a garage sale in Townsville over a year ago! And with Hubs not having slept for 24 hours!

There’s so much more I could say, but instead here’s what you’re waiting for:

We stopped at the Riverslea Fossil site:

The next day while Quinn was sleeping and I was “supervising” Hubs took Chanbe on a walk up a “big hill”. That’s the gorge right in the middle and the campsite to the left. Rather stunning, no?

The next morning, our friends had arrived so we decided to check out a lovely swimming spot. Hubs, Chanbe, Felix and Erica took the canoe and Sonia, Amber, Lindsay, Quinn and I went by foot. It wasn’t very far, but it was a very exposed track.

Matchy-matchy stripey tops!

After the desert-feel of the walk, we go to the top of a (small) hill and had an “ooooooh” moment.

We couldn’t have timed it better, with the canoe load arriving at the same time.

Just a touch (a touch) of paradise

Obviously Chanbe had an absolute ball

And Dadda enjoyed his Tarzan moment

There was a lot of this… 

…and this…

A beautiful sunset at the camp ground

On our way home on Sunday, we stopped for lunch at a creek crossing.
Years and years ago I found this recipe that I’ve always wanted to try!
You cut the tops off oranges, scoop out the guts (to eat later!), fill with cake mix, put the top back on, wrap in foil and put in hot coals for 20 minutes (ish!)

You can see the oranges in the foil underneath the jaffles

They were super delicious! Very moist and orangey.

Quinndy pointing delightfully at something

Chanbe made a very close friend in Lindsay, our pediatrician friend. A good friend to have!

The whole group on our way home at sunset

There are so many photos that I didn’t get like the campsite set up (as mentioned) and my super-grubby kids on the Sunday after not bathing for 2 days and me just giving up on wiping noses or food off faces. It was super adorable, though I did enjoy taking to them with a nice wet washer before we got into the car!

I also hadn’t mentioned that Hubs had been feeling ill since waking up Friday morning. He powered through the 3 days of camping, but then collapsed in a heap on Sunday night when we got home. After 2 more days of fevers and aches and pains, I sent him to the doctor. He had to have Wednesday and Thursday off work and still isn’t 100%. This is a photo Chanbe took of him:

So all in all, apart from the sickness, it was an amazingly successful camping trip and we had a lovely group of people to share it with. We are already looking forward to the next adventure! Maybe this time I’ll even remember to get a photo of the tent!

Racing around

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I’ve been a bit slow with blogging about stuff as it happens, so here’s a post about what we got up to 2 weekends ago. Hubs and I have been whinging a little that there’s nothing much to do up here, so when opportunities get presented to us, we really try and take advantage. So when we heard that the races were on, we thought we’d go along and check it out. They started around 2pm on the Saturday, so after Quindy had her nap, we all got dolled up and hit the tracks.

Isn’t it fun trying to get your 3 year old to pose for a nice family photo?

We had NO idea what to expect – how big it was going to be, how much it would cost, what the place was actually like – so we just went in head first and hoped for the best. We knew there were going to be a few doctors there that Hubs works with, and a few of the mums I’ve met through playgroup were heading in too, so we would at least know a few people.

By our standards (we had only really ever been to the Wang races on Melbourne Cup Day) it was quite small, but that suited us just fine. Quinn was happy to wander around looking cute:

And Chance still had a bit of a cold, so he was happy just to chill out and watch movies on my phone:

We’re really glad we went along and had a great time meeting new people and spending time with new friends. Speaking of which, Hubs met the friend of one of the doctors he works with and he mentioned a group of his friends were going 4WDriving the next day, and that we would be most welcome to come along. So in the spirit of taking people up on their offers to do things, we said yes!

We met the group around 10am Sunday morning and after a little rendesvous, we put the kids in the car…

and headed off! (ha ha.)

We headed north about 40km before we turned off onto the track. It was a pretty tame drive, but there were a few squeals of excitement/fear from me at a couple of creek (dry) crossings.

There were 6 cars in the convoy and a lovely bunch of people emerged at the swimming hole we arrived at:

Unfortunately our friend hadn’t mentioned to bring togs, so Hubs just jumped in with his clothes, and the kids had spare clothes so they went in too. It was so lovely. I was very sad I hadn’t brought my togs 🙁 Next time! It was a really lovely few hours and we hope to head out with the group again sometime soon.

We arrived home to unpack, change, and head out to a friend’s place for a BBQ. So yeah, a very big weekend for us! The following weekend, Hubs had to work, so this is his first full weekend with no plans for some time. We are thinking about heading out to Lake Julius tomorrow just to check it out, but no firm plans at this stage. The weather is finally a little more bearable today (only getting up to 32 today! Woo!) so a trip to the park might be nice too.

We’re trying to make the most of it, and slowly getting there.

Making Pierogi

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A few months ago, my lovely cousin asked me for my recipe for pierogi, as she wanted to try her hand at it sometime. I suggested that when I was in town the following month (October), that maybe we could make it together. Actually, I said “LET’S MAKE THIS HAPPEN” in no uncertain terms. So we did. And it was awesome. And so was the pierogi 🙂

Getting pretty close to how Nanny used to make it! A few more tries should do it 🙂

Ingham chicken love ’em

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So it turns out Ingham Chickens aren’t from Ingham. It was rather a disappointment to me, if I were to be completely honest. One that I got over very quickly, but I realised I had been making the Ingham chicken love ’em joke for a little while and well, don’t I look sheepish.

Moving on.

We have internet!! Obviously. This makes me very happy. Except we don’t have much internet. We have gone from 200GB of ADSL a month to 3GB of wireless. It’s not pretty. I have a lot of reading to catch up on my feedly account, but I don’t want to blow our data limit!!

Ingham is great. The trip here went well – I drove the land cruiser towing our dodgy trailer (Hubs calls it “agricultural”…) with the red baron on top (see below) while he drove the kombi. We both made it with no trouble. The house they (the hospital) have provided for us is really lovely. I was a bit disappointed when they told us they didn’t have one of the lovely new roomy units available for us, and that they were putting us up in the older house, but as soon as we walked in the door, we knew we’d love it here.

We’ve just been settling in, albeit quickly, going to church the day after we arrived, and having someone over for dinner already, plus our friends came to stay for the weekend! The kids have been a bit sick on and off since we arrived, and Chanbe has been somewhat displaced and a bit challenging, but we are doing well.

We are heading down to T’ville for the weekend for Chanbe’s 3rd birthday party which Mum and Dad are coming up for, and then they are coming to stay here next week which will be lovely.

As usual, I’ll let the photos tell the rest of the story!!

Let’s hit the road!

Chanbe was very keen to get to “Eeam” as he calls it.

The first few days were somewhat challenging. 
(FYI those books were on the shelf behind him about a minute before I took this photo…)
  
Chanbe has seriously been into his play-dough since we arrived. How do you like my strawberry??
  
This is our living room. We removed the TV on day one, just to eliminate temptation…
  
 My clever little munchkin!
  
 We try and eat our afternoon tea outside in the shade while we wait for Dadda to come home. Sometimes we wait a long time and then give up 🙂
  
 Gotta love watermelon season!
  
My poor little monkeys have been sick the last few days. Chanbe actually fell asleep on the couch!!

Not that you would know he’s sick most of the time…

So that’s us updated for now. We haven’t really gotten into any kind of routine as yet, as there have been a lot of days sleeps (them, not me 🙁 ) which has thrown things out of whack a bit. But I’m not really in need of routine at the moment. This is like a bit of a holiday for us, so we’re just going with the flow. Because that’s what you do in north Queensland ay?

It’s not easy being green

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I’ve been pretty slack with my fruit and vege intake lately, and I’ve been reading a lot about these “green smoothies” the world is into at the moment. So I thought I’d give it a go. I chose a fairly inoffensive-sounding one to start with; spinach, apple, honey, cinnamon and almond milk.

It sure looked pretty!! Unlike my face while I was drinking it.

Oooooh. It wasn’t great. It was quite bland, but at the same time, very sickly sweet. I really had to force myself to finish it, and it gurgled away in my tummy for the rest of the afternoon.

I think I’ll just stick to my salads and stir frys for my vege intake, and make sure I eat fruit when I give it to Chanbe twice a day. Though, in the interest of not judging too quickly, I may try another combination, so if you have a favourite, send it my way!! Please!?

Another 5k

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In the lead up to my first 5km run, I also signed up for the Bridge to Brisbane and recruited another one of my wonderfully supportive friends to run it with me. Unfortunately, my pulled hip muscle prevented me from running this event, so we walked it instead. And since we weren’t running, we decided to have a nice relaxing brekky at Restaurant Manx at Portside beforehand. The eggs Benedict I had was so delicious, and the coffee (2 coffees, actually) were Melbourne-standard delicious! A great yummy start to a fantastic walk filled with some always-needed girl time with my friend. It also meant we could chat the whole time instead of me huffing and puffing my way through. I’ve lost a bit of fitness in my recovery, but I know how quickly I can get that back once I start jogging again, so I’m confident I can get back into it once my hip feels better.

Being so far from my close girlfriends is sometimes really hard, and this year I really have had some great quality time with quite a few of them, which always recharges my soul.

Staying positive

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Well it was bound to happen. It’s what I do. I was attempting my first 5k run last Sunday in the lead up to this Sunday’s fun run, and at 3km, sciatica pain hit. At 4km I had to stop. I was quite sad and couldn’t help being a little (very) frustrated. I came home, took some pain killers and have been hoping for the best ever since. I’ve been doing what all the articles are telling me to do – stretch, heat, cold, rest, pain killers. Today is the first day I’ve noticed a small improvement. I really have my heart set on running this Sunday, and I’m just trying to stay positive that it will happen.

I’ve never stuck to a plan like this before, and there’s still a part of me that can’t believe I actually made it (almost!) this far. I feel like, if I can do this, there are so many other things I can believe I’m capable of.

I just have to get through Sunday. Wish me luck!!!!!

Mind over body and lungs over legs

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I’ve gotten to a stage with my running where my cardio fitness has surpassed my physical abilities, and it’s hard going. I feel like I’m doing well with the “mind over body” with positive thoughts (I can do this; just keep running; nearly there) but my legs are finding it hard keeping up with my lungs. I wish I had added some leg muscle strengthening exercise into my training, but it might be a bit late for that now.

Or is it? I’m worried that if I start doing squats and lunges, I won’t be able to walk the next day, let alone run! Maybe a few days of pain now will be worth it in the end though? The fun run is only 18 days away, so I can’t imagine I’ll be able to achieve much in that time, but maybe it’s worth a try!

And here’s the big news: I’m also going to do the 5k leg of the Bridge to Brisbane this year!! I looked at the dates and it’s on the 1st of September which is only a few days after we were going to leave Brisbane after our holidays. I had a chat to Hubs and he was very supportive about me staying for the extra week so I can do it (and recover) and fly home with the kids a few days later! He has to come back for work, otherwise he would have stayed to cheer me on.

I feel really excited about committing to this, as it means this isn’t, for now, just a passing faze. And the other exciting news? My clothes are fitting so much better! I pulled out my jeans and 3/4 that I put away when I got too fat pregnant (both??) and couldn’t fit into them. I tried them on a few months ago and they still didn’t fit. I hadn’t even considered that they might fit now, but 2 pairs of jeans, 2 pairs of black pants and 4 pairs of 3/4 pants now fit me again!! So even though I haven’t lost much weight, (that’s all about the food) I seem to have toned up enough to have dropped a size. Woo!!

To be honest, I haven’t felt this good about my health for years. I feel like things are getting back on track, and I’m really enjoying the benefits of regular exercise. Now I just have to tackle the food…

I did it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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I’m still on a high. Yesterday I completed Week 5, day 3 of the couch 2 5k program. I know I know. I started the program 11 weeks ago, but I had a few setbacks that slowed me down a bit. So I restarted 7 weeks ago, and have been working my way through the 9 week program a little slower, so I can do it right.

And last night it paid off. The summary for last night’s run was: (From RunDouble)

“Day 3 follows (the warm-up walk) with a single 3.2km run.”

and then it says:

“Don’t be put off, you’ve been preparing for this for 5 weeks, just keep a steady pace, and keep going.”

Oh I was put off. I mean, the last few weeks of my training have been going so well. I’ve really been enjoying the runs, and haven’t stopped during any of them. My pace has been anywhere between 7min 45sec to 9min per km, but that doesn’t worry me. The running feels good. My feet feel good. My knees, hips, ankles are fine.

But 3.2km?? The furthest interval I’d run was 1.2km the day before. But since the running had been going so well, I decided that I could do it. Even before I put my shoes and running gear on, I knew I could do it.

And I did it. It was so awesome. I have NEVER run/jogged that far in my adult life and it just felt so amazing. I’m really proud of myself (can you tell??) and I’m 100% sure that I’ll be running the 5k by the 4th of August – less than 5 weeks away.

#036 – Go to the Harvey Ranges with Mum

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This is part of my challenge to complete 101 things in 1001 days. 
See my full list here, and the inspiration behind the 101 things in 1001 days challenge here.

While Mum was visiting, we headed up to the Harvey Ranges Heritage Tea Rooms to check out their High Tea. Unfortunately we needed to give a week’s notice for High Tea, so instead we just ordered off the menu. We’ll try for a High Tea somewhere else sometime!

There were quite a few people there for a mid-week, non-school holidays time of year, (not that you can tell from the photos!) and it gave the place extra atmosphere. It had a really lovely feel to it, with an old, rustic house, and seating among lovely shady trees.

It was a really nice place to spend some quality mother/daughter/granddaughter time, and just from the look and feel of the place, I was already saying I’d love to bring Hubs and Chanbe here sometime, as well as out-of-town guests.

We ordered some scones and a focaccia to share, and of course a couple of coffees, and waited in the beautiful surrounds.

The food and drinks arrived, and this is where things started to go a bit downhill. The coffee was so incredibly weak, it was like they put only a trickle of espresso in, so I went back and asked for an extra shot. Even with that, it was barely passable as “coffee” instead of “slightly coffee flavoured milk”.

The focaccia was certainly forgettable, as was the dressing-soaked salad on the side. And the scones. The scones weren’t sconny at all. They were like slabs of cake-like-stuff that just tasted like nothing much at all. And they were ridiculously huge. Not dainty or light and fluffy or special at all.

So I’m not sure I’ll be heading back anytime soon, which is such a shame. Obviously we still had a lovely time, but that was more about the place and the company, and not much to do with the food and drink.
 
This place has SO MUCH potential, but there’s just no heart. Maybe that’s why this sign was up.
 

I feel like they’ve already sold the place – like they’re just killing time and don’t have to try hard or impress anyone. My imagination went straight to “Hubs and I would be so great at running a place like this!” I could make (awesome) scones in the morning, make (delicious) coffees all day, and bake (yummy) treats in the evenings. That would be so cool. Maybe one day…