Off the bitumen!

Well after spending last weekend on the mundane, yet still essential stuff of life, we were free, come Thursday afternoon, to head off in The Windsor on another little camping adventure. This time we went to Eungella Dam, off the bitumen, way off in the sticks, sort of.This time the setup went much better and before long we were settled in front of the fire watching the sunset. And it didn't disappoint!Up early the next day, as that's what happens when you camp, being in tune as you are with nature. Or it could be we always wake before 6am anyway. We set up a little bathroom today and played with the little present A&P gave us. Sisters should always give each other toilets. It is nice. And this particular one was a godsend, as the nearest toilet was 100 metres away. Which is no fun in the middle of the night. Now I am not adverse to popping behind the nearest tree with a spare tissue, but there were just too many other campers and not enough trees that were fatter than me. KISA of course, doesn't have this problem.
We also played with what I used to call KISA's Folly. He wanted to buy this, has been on my case for months to buy this. I said, that camping was meant to be a little more austere and simple. (not that our set up could be described as simple or austere!) I now no longer call it KISA's Folly, more like a bloody sensible idea. The temperatures dropped to below 10 degrees on each morning and having a nice al fresco HOT shower was quite the treat. Eungella Dam only offers cold showers, also 100 metres away.And it doesn't take up THAT much room. I am quite won over! KISA does have some good ideas sometimes.
I wish I could say we did lots of active jolly hockey sticks kind of stuff on our little camping adventure off the bitumen. However we did lots of sitting about reading and chatting and having cups of tea and communing with the locals. We loved it.

These guys came right up to the campsite next to us that was vacant. They ate the ashes from the fire pit. Then had a drink. You'd need a drink after eating ashes! Mr Plant said that they do it to kill their intestinal worms. I prefer Combantrim, it tastes better I think.This is Lenny. Lenny is seven months old. He loves going for a swim in the lake after breakfast then coming over to us for a cuddle. We forgave him because he is so cute. Even for a cold wet smelly dog.

KISA built lots of lovely fires and we were treated to another lovely, though totally different sunset on night two. See all the pink on the clouds? That means it will be bloody cold by next morning. And it was.

We cooked our dinner over the camp fire on the second night. I had made up a bread dough and pinched off two balls each about the size of a tennis ball. Pressed it out into a rough round flat shape by hand and grilled it on the cast iron flat grill pan thingy to make naan bread. It was great! Then we put some chicken thighs I had marinated in tandoori paste and yoghurt before we left home, on the grill for a few minutes each side to have with the naan. Great success and couldn't be easier. We baked the rest of the bread dough in the camp oven and it turned out really well. Very chuffed for a first attempt!
Next day we had visitors. Some very nice Plants came to visit us and have a picnic lunch with us. Mrs Plant is a tropical plant and found it a bit chilly. We visited together for a couple of hours and they headed back down to the greenhouse of Mackay. They are campers too and checked out the dam as a potential future spot. We enjoyed having guests in our little holiday home.

Another beautiful sunset on Saturday night, another pink one, and it brought the promised cold night and morning. Such a difficult thing to watch while seated in front of a nice fire sipping from a bottle of merlot! I couldn't choose from the photos we took, so here are two more pictures. I am such a sucker for sunsets!

This morning before we started to pack up, we went for a drive to the spot opposite our camp. We had seen traffic lights coming down the hill the night before, so went to explore what was obviously a road. It just went up and up and the views got better and better!
Then we found a rough track, 4WD only that headed even further up and led to a lookout with views of the dam and surrounding hills. It was also an incredibly clear day, completely free of haze. It was breathtaking.
This is a picture of our camp taken with the zoomiest zoom on the camera.
KISA and I were on top of our world!
We headed back down to do the pack up, which was the best one yet. We were on the road home within an hour. The camera's battery was flat and I had caught a cold, but it was a great weekend, think we will sleep well tonight!