Will 2lbs of butter make my butt look big LOL.

Not for the want of trying. I now need to declutter something the size of St Peter's bascillica in Rome and sleep for a week LOL to keep up with the butter and food intake this weekend. After completing my blog yesterday - I rested my eyes for 1/2 hour and then went down to the campfire or campfire town! We now have the big campfire with individual campfires lit by various staff children who have wanted their own cooking space. The workmate had made another batch of damper whilst I was resting and found two bags of marshmellows. There is something very soothing about holding a long stick the length of a boat road, gently toasting marshmellows over coals (one is never enough), and again the squidginess of it melting in the mouth. We had some superb, big, fat, white, marshmellows yesterday which were a superior variety to the usual pink and white ones. I was also in time to score a cooked wodge of damper, was able to cook another piece, and have a few more crumbs to go with the butter and golden syrup that was slavishly used on each piece. I thought jam was good with butter with damper but golden syrup and butter goes one step beyond.

Seeing everyone was enjoying the fires and eating, we thought why not continue and have tea there as well. I went off foraging at the bosses place for a hot plate and then went to the kitchen and hand wrapped 20 bits of potatoe in foil, plus collected some meat packs, chopped three onions, collected some more butter, salt and pepper, sauce and bread and went back to the camp fire. By now the workmate's entire family were there with camp chairs (beats sitting on rocks that abound with ants), coffee in a thermos, more marshmellows and the 4WD cunningly parked with the tape deck going. We buried the potatoes under the hot coals and placed the hot plate in a nest of coals to one side and the girls went to work. Hot potatoes now with butter, to go with the bread with butter, sausage, sauce and onion.... I rolled home about 8pm. Whereupon I baked a cake.

It was the workmate's, husband's birthday today, so I resurrected my most ancient of cooking books and decided to bake a coffee cake Mum used to make on a regular basis. I doubled the mixture and baked it in a roasting dish. The usual recipie is baked in a ring tin so it was all a bit of a gamble. It took ages to bake - the recipie says 375o F and so thought if I halved it sort of and added a bit to make 180oC it might work. I also doubled the cooking time but had to give it about 1/2 hr extra on top of that. the cake turned out with a slight dip in the middle and quite a chewy sort of texture. This morning I iced it with butter coffee icing that disguised some of the dip and with candles and M&M's on top, it all went down rather well.

Did I mention I was up at 6.30am????? Up at school by 7am loading the car, having birthday cake and managing to leave the site by 8am for Kalbarri (note, I finally got the spelling right). This involved 2 hours of driving in the middle of nowhere (called the Chapman valley)before driving for 1/2 hour through the Kilbarri National Park. The Chapman valley was miles and miles of either red dirt acreage or wheat planted acreage. Great excitement when we saw two eagles (stopped for another photo op) and two trees full of black cocatoos. The National Park landscape was very scrubby, much like driving along the Desert road but with more vegetation. Kilbarri is where a river meets the sea - I think it is the Murchison river - we went straight to the township that runs along the shore which is smaller than Whitianga and to where the "carnival" was taking place. The green sward running along the beach frontage held stalls, a beer tent, a cooking tent and a truck with a stage and sound system on it. There were a few bouncy castles happening and active pursuits happening on the beach and in the tide. We strolled round the stalls - mainly hippy type jewellry, children's clothing and home preserves and met up with the other staff from school who were staying in Kilbarri for the weekend. Some of us decided to check out a few of the local shops - a touristy type shop - over priced and full of kitch and as we were about to go a bit further we noticed the weather had changed to black thunder clouds and within minutes it was pouring. Decided to go and get fish and chips for lunch and eat them with the other staff at their place. I nearly had a stroke at the cost- $130 for 10 bits of snapper and $10 chips!!!!! The fish was $12 per piece!!!!! We did have snapper and you could buy hake for $9 piece but OMG for that price Iwould have expected the whole fish. The workmate's husband assured me that it wasn't out of the ordinary for fresh snapper and could not believe I could get fish and chips for $5, with salt and lemon in NZ.

Unbeknownst to us, the other staff had cooked up a big pot of spaghetti and wiener schnitzel done Italian style so we were fair groaning with fullness at the end of the meal. Had a smidgeon of room for some blue vein castello and thought I was done for the day. At 4.30pm, however, we decamped to the beach once more as the crayfish were being served up at 5pm and for some, that was the imperitive of the day.(It had been mine too until after lunch) I decided I would pass it up but after having a mouthfull of fresh, cooked cray - I got the girls to get two halves and we all shared. OMG again! The crays were sliced in two in front of you and then put straight on the barbie, served with a dab of garlic butter and herbs and get this $10 for 1/2 a crayfish!!! (let them eat cray!! I say) Bliss. We stayed on for awhile and watched the sunset - beautiful pinks, shot with gold, and thought we might also stay for the fireworks but they were not going to happen until 8pm. As it was nearly 7pm and we had 2 1/2 hours driving back in the dark, we pulled up sticks and left.

The trip back seemed quicker, as it usually does. The workmate drove the ute back and I came back with her family. I have now been in a car that has hit a kangaroo - thankfully - just grazed its tail which left a mark above the lights on the bumper. Saw about 5 more on the way back but luckily none of them tried to leap out in front of us. It was only a small roo and I am just glad I wasn't driving.

I am not sure whether today's rain was anything to do with what Perth got last night. As we were leaving the campfire we could see lightening all around on the horizon. Apparrently over 20,000 people were without power in Perth last night after power was knocked out by the storm. Got back here tonight after coming through areas where there had been rain earlier in the day but no such luck here - maybe later tonight.
Am off home to crash I think. Another day tomorrow - at this stage a day on site but who knows LOL.