How to make Aussie Campfire Damper in a Camp Oven, simple and rustic

The weather in the Tropics started cooling down recently, so we went camping in the Great Outdoors. To make a damper in a Camp Oven, there first needs to be  a roaring, crackling evening campfire, which then burns down overnight to a bed of glowing, red hot coals. This can take all night, although someone might need to add a little more wood to the fire around three o'clock in the morning, so that it doesn't burn out. That would be a travesty, as we were depending on those perfect hot coals to provide the setting to make a bread damper for morning tea.

We're home now after an enjoyable camping holiday at Blencoe Falls and Murray Falls in Far North Queensland, followed by a road trip to Cairns and Cooktown.  One of the highlights of the trip for me was breaking in their new cast iron Camp Oven with Shannon and Dan and experimenting with making  a campfire Damper. Mr. HRK and I have both made damper  a long time ago when he was in the School Army Cadets and I was in the Girl Guides, the technique is still much the same, not that I can remember much about way back then LOL. When we camp, we enjoy the luxury of very comfortable and warm beds, great sleeping bags, comfortable chairs, a good if quite antique BBQ stove and a great tent. We also have a very good car frig so we can take a lot of food with us, which often includes pre-prepared frozen meals which only require reheating in a pot. Breakfasts are cooked from scratch, after all an Aussie brekkie of bacon, eggs, tomato, toast and perhaps sausages are a must. 

This is the view of the river beside our campsite, very easy to enjoy.




We set ourselves a challenge to cook a perfect damper by the end of the camping trip. We had four days and made four dampers and were very happy with all of them really, but the last one was as close to perfect as we could get.

When you work damper too much, all of the air is pushed out, and the damper becomes dense.The perfect damper is golden and crisp on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and dripping with melted butter and golden syrup. However you might prefer honey, maple syrup, or your favourite jam. The first two were made with 1 cup of plain flour and 2 teaspoons of baking powder, as I had run out of SR flour,  however they didn't rise as much as I hoped. We purchased some self raising flour at the very good IGA supermarket in Cardwell, on the way to Murray Falls,  and that made all the difference. I don't think the baking powder, which was fresh by the way, was dispersed through the plain flour enough to act as a rising agent. It needed to be sifted through. So from now on, Self Raising flour it is.

Damper Ingredients:

2 cups SR Flour
Pinch of salt
Water

Let's make Damper:

• In a bowl, add 2 cups of self-raising flour and a pinch of salt
• Slowly add water from the jug and mix gently with a wooden spoon until the ingredients start to combine and form a dough
• The dough now needs to be mixed together, not kneaded. Using your hands, yes your clean hands, cup the ingredients in your hands, and slowly work the dough until you get a nice round damper shape.

Shannon and I are making the damper in our outdoor and very happy camp kitchen.

Mix. Don't knead.

• Place the damper onto a lightly floured trivet covered with foil and put the lid on the camp oven.

Cook for about 20-25 minutes in hot coals, not a fire.



(Heat beads could also be used if you needed to. If using heat beads, a rough estimate would be to use around 10 heat beads on the bottom and 14 on the top of a 9QT camp oven. )

Our first damper is ready to eat and it's pretty good. It could have been slightly browner though.

The second Delicious Damper we cooked was left in the pot longer, and was crispier on the outside and quite fluffy inside. It was all eaten. This quantity was enough for the four of us for morning tea,

Hot Damper delicious with Golden Syrup

Mr.HRK loves camping and is having a wonderful time in his camp chair beside the beautiful creek eating hot damper, smothered with Golden Syrup.

Now the real fun begins. The men decided that perhaps the coals needed to be hotter with a little flame as well and that we should leave the damper in the pot a bit longer to crisp up more. I was filled with scepticism, however it was soon forgotten as we went swimming in the beautifully clear but chilly creek open to the public which flows from Murray Falls. I could smell the damper before I saw it and knew it was charred on the outside, which can be how damper turns out in the best scenario. I think this charred damper reminded Mr. HRK of his school cadet damper days, and not to be deterred he scraped off the burnt bits, and surprisingly the inside dough tasted amazing. 

Slightly burnt but still delicious

So we had four attempts at making damper, all with slightly different results, but all delicious. We made another one after the burnt offering the day before and it was as good as it would get. Everyone agreed that a camp oven, on a bed of hot coals, with hot coals scatted over the lid and cooked for 25-30 minutes, yields the best results. Just increase the ingredients to feed a crowd of campers. Damper definitely needs to be eaten hot on the day of baking.

Beautiful Blencoe Falls

Blencoe Falls, in the Girringun National Park,  is one of the most stunning waterfalls in Australia, plunging 90 metres to the waterhole below, and then cascading a further 230 m to the bottom of Blencoe Gorge. It is located off the Bruce Highway, 110km south-east of Mount Garnet, and 90km north-west of Cardwell. We turned of at Cardwell in North Queensland and drove for two hours up the Kirrama Range Road through lush tropical rainforests, where we saw lots of small waterfalls escaping from the forest and an echnida on the road.

This is the view from the Kirrama Range lookout to the Coral Sea, overlooking lush sugarcane fields and farmland. 

Blencoe Falls, a wonderful sight following tropical rain

It's time for a picnic lunch of wraps, ham and salad, overlooking the Falls.

Majestic Murray Falls in Girramay National Park

Murray Falls, located about 30 minutes by car North of Cardwell, look carefully for the sign, is a cascade waterfall on the Murray River. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage listed Wet Tropics, on the Cassowary Coast. This was our second camping spot, and we loved it. The swimming in the clear mountain river below was chilly but invigorating and relaxing.

The river flows over naturally sculpted granite, which become very slippery. Trees and native plants  can be seen growing out of the granite.

Mesmerising.

The walk up to the Murray Falls Lookout is very easy on an established walking path. Signs implore everyone not to climb over the railings onto the rocks or enter the water. Quite a few people have lost their lives attempting to climb over the rocks to swim around Murray Falls

Did I mention the Cassowary Coast in the Wet Tropics where we were? Look for the blue in the photo below and you will see the Cassowary, a large flightless bird native to New Guinea and the North Queensland Wet Tropics. Yes we saw one. It is an icon but a sadly endangered species. We don't have many good photos of this very large native Australian bird as to get too close is to risk your life. He visited our campsite at Murray Falls each morning at Breakfast time and again for Dinner, hoping to be fed. To feed them is to risk a fine of $3,000.00 and also to risk your life as their large claws are lethal. Thankfully when we waved our arms at him and  told him to leave he left without too much resistance. I found our car was a good refuge when he came too close. However he is a beautifully coloured bird and it is still a thrill to see them in the wild. A tourist at the campsite next to us was holding a burger bun and thought she could have a game with him, however the Cassowary saw the bun and her as purely a food source and it very nearly ended badly. Dan to the rescue, and he rushed over and shooed the Cassowary away, after the very frightened young lady had already thrown the bun at the big bird.

Here I am contemplating the tranquillity and beauty beside the clear creek running off Blencoe Falls.

I hope you enjoyed reading about our camping escape into the Wet Tropics as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you. Have you ever seen a Cassowary in the wild and do you enjoy camping?

Thanks for dropping by,

Pauline

Our 3 month camping trip to Tasmania from Northern Queensland

Mexican Mince with Avocado and Coriander was one of the easy and delicious meals I cooked during our road trip.

Go straight to recipe here.

Hello dear readers, and it's great to be home after a 3 month road trip, although it still seems strange not to be "on the road again" each or every second day. It is also nice to be back in our own bed and my own kitchen.

I thought I would do a little review of some of the things we learnt along the way and some tips for next time, if you are interested in taking such a trip. We covered a lot of kilometres and visited a lot of towns and I'm also testing myself to see how many names I can recall, without resorting to looking at the map. I won't be mentioning everywhere we visited though in this small space:)

We left home at the end of January, with our Toyota Fortuna packed to the hilt, and a pod on the top carrying various camping gear items. We are now home, whereas many southerners are only just beginning their trip North to avoid the southern cold weather. Mother's Day to Father's Day seems to be the time frame for southern travellers to travel to North Queensland and over to the Northern Territory and Western Australia, and through the Red Centre.

Accommodation:

Our main accommodation  as our primary place of residence was our tent, a Black Wolf 240, 2.4 metres square. Plenty of room for us and light to carry and assemble. I can hear you all gasping from here,  but Mr. HRK is passionate about camping and it is good fun. We began purchasing all of our equipment online from Snowys Outdoor camping shop in Adelaide a couple of years ago, and from whom we have received excellent service. We also visited them when we were in Adelaide on this trip and topped up on a few items and it was great to visit the store that we had only previously visited online. They were all very friendly and helpful.

Essential to us at our age is a good nights sleep and to own very comfortable bedding, and many options are also available from Snowys. However we never camped for more than a week at a time without then staying in a Holiday Park cabin for a couple of nights, or with relatives and good friends or very occasionally in a motel.

The Bowra Hotel

We had a great pub meal here at the Bowra Hotel in early February when we stayed at Congarinni North near Macksville in NSW, with my cousin Myles and his lovely wife Katie and their beautiful family. We wouldn't have thought to visit this area if Myles hadn't invited us to stay, and it is a beautiful part of the world, with lots of  great beaches and surf.

Sometimes the weather forced alternative accommodation as well. A lot of tourists (primarily grey nomads) travel in caravans, mobile homes or camper trailers and mostly source free camps using wikicamps by the road along the way. No-one travelling in vans likes paying for accommodation. There are many free campsites along the road.  However camping in a tent means that in some Holiday Parks we could camp on the best sites available overlooking the ocean and beautiful scenery, which caravans couldn't access.

Camping at Penguin on the North West Coast of Tasmania overlooking the beautiful ocean.

Our simple campsite at Penguin

The most we paid for a tent site on our travels was $30.00 a night and the least was $5.00, at the Mt. Pleasant Showgrounds in the Barossa in South Australia.

Budget:

It helps to have a budget in mind, particularly when travelling for 3 months.  We aimed at budgeting an average of $140 a day, and did pretty well with mixing up accommodation, cooking most of our own food and staying away from the cities whenever possible. Finding parking for a 4 wheel drive with a pod on top in the large cities, proved to be almost impossible and also expensive.

 Fuel was the biggest expense for us on our trip. Our Toyota 4 wheel drive runs on diesel, which cost an average of $65 per day. It pays in the outback to keep the fuel tank as full as possible just in case the next service station has shut down or is just closed for the day, which does happen. We weren't towing a caravan or a camper trailer, although we did have a pod on top of the car, so our fuel consumption was very good compared to what some rigs on the highway must be paying for fuel. Hence the need probably for caravanners to find as many free camps as possible.

Our route:

 Our trip was a little longer than I thought it would be. We drove through the scenic Yarra Valley to Melbourne, caught the ferry to Devonport and then drove to Avoca to stay with friends, Lynne and Rob for a couple of nights with whom we sampled some very nice Tasmanian wines and foods in the area.

On board the Spirit of Tasmania in Melbourne and setting sail for Tasmania, with the Queen Mary 2 in port as well.

 Gala, Devils Corner and Stoney Vineyard/Domaine A, come to mind as vineyards we visited. There were more ha,ha. However Tasmanian wine is expensive to buy from the cellar door and better deals can be found at Dan Murphy outlets. Wine tasting though is a lot of fun, as long as we're not driving. After three wonderful weeks in Tasmania, we sailed back to Melbourne and stayed at the Coburg Holiday Park for a couple of nights in a cabin, saw the amazing Carole King story "Beautiful", at Her Majesty's Theatre, and then drove to Adelaide along the Great Ocean Road, camping at Apollo Bay. We flew to Perth and drove to Albany for Easter with Matthew, Myrtille and little Hugo and hired a cabin there. What a lovely place, and the Military Museum was a highlight to visit. Then we flew back to Adelaide, collected the car, and stayed with friends for a couple of nights. A highlight of that time being a train trip into the Melbourne markets and a delicious Japanese Bento box for lunch.

We camped in the Barossa for a couple of nights at the Showgrounds, under cover in the open shearing shed, as storms were brewing and the tent withstood 70 km winds. It was wild weather.

Our tent under cover and firmly secured to withstand the wild storm

Our friends, Joanne and Allan were camped there in their mobile home as well. If they hadn't been there we would have stayed in a motel that night because of the weather. The manager of the Park was so accommodating and couldn't do enough for us. I wasn't sorry to leave there though as the weather was cold, wet, windy and miserable.  However we survived and our tent with awnings securely fastened remained in the ground. Lots of delicious curries and local red wines with friends on the first night warmed us up nicely.

We drove through the Red Centre via underground and opal studded Coober Pedy to Uluru and the Olgas. Truly majestic country. The real outback camping started from here. Our destination was Cairns and the drive from Hughenden and along the Kennedy Development Road was highlighted by a camp overnight at Porcupine Gorge. The Gorge is beautiful, although the 1.2 km steep uphill walk back to the top to the campsite nearly killed me. A few days in Cairns with our daughter and her partner in their home, and then another enjoyable camping trip with them to Davies Creek National Park near Mareeba, on the Atherton Tablelands inland from Cairns, and then home to Mackay.

Davies Creek National Park falls

Cooking and Meals

Mexican Mince

This is a delicious mid-week meal for the whole family and so easy to make if you are camping or travelling with access to a stove and a fry pan.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons Olive Oil
2 onions, finely chopped
500g beef mince
1 green capsicum, diced
4 rashes bacon, finely chopped
1 can of tomato soup
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 stick celery, finely diced
1 cup macaroni or elbow pasta
2 cloves crushed garlic
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
finely chopped coriander
1 chopped ripe avocado

Let's cook:

Gently fry the onions in olive oil until transparent. Add the beef mince, white pepper and bacon and cook until mince is browned.

Meanwhile, boil the macaroni in a separate saucepan until cooked.

Add the celery, garlic, oregano, and capsicum to the beef sauce and cook on a low heat for 10 minutes.

Add the tomato soup and water and simmer until mixture thickens and vegetables are cooked.

Add the macaroni to the beef mixture and mix well.

Serve with chopped avocado and coriander as a garnish.

I have also served this with some corn chips on the side. It's a crowd pleaser.

Our car frig was packed with lots of frozen meals that I had cooked in advance when we began our journey. This really works for us and takes the pressure off needing to carry lots of supplies, and cooking a meal at the end of a day of travelling. In most holiday parks and campsites, except for the remote Outback ones, there are excellent and well equipped Camp Kitchens available with a stove or a microwave for reheating. Many campers and young travellers and backpackers don't even bother carrying much cooking equipment now and rely on the camp kitchens. I soon learnt though that there are a lot of Chinese tourists travelling through the southern states and particularly along the Great Ocean Road in Mobile campers and they know how to cook up a storm in the camp kitchens. I was quite fascinated to often walk into a camp kitchen and find a Chinese family chopping and dicing lots of cabbage and numerous vegetables on the benches, and always with a pot of rice bubbling on the stove. They had some excellent equipment as well such as a small food processor for mincing meat, compact saucepans and the ubiquitous soy sauce. Not many could speak very good English, however  we often found a way to discuss what they were cooking. I loved that. Mostly they were gracious and stood aside so that others could use the stove etc. Discussing food overcomes a lot of obstacles, don't you think?

We topped up with fresh fruit and vegetables, milk etc along the way at Farmers Markets and roadside stalls. However fresh fruit and vegetables can't be taken over the border into most southern states and by the time we arrived in Melbourne most of our frozen meals were eaten anyway. It works well for us to stay in a cabin occasionally as I often then cook a large meal and freeze portions for later. Whilst we often shouted ourselves a good coffee in the morning when travelling, buying meals can be very expensive when travelling.

The fresh fruit and vegetables available in Tasmania was often obtainable from roadside stalls and markets, particularly apples.

Pop's Garden, An economical roadside stall in Tasmania

I also loved how many book swap cabinets there were in the parks and small towns where we travelled. This is so practical for travellers who are ready for a new book to read and are happy to swap what they have just read for a new one.  A really nice one we saw in Cygnet in Tasmania, had been built by the Men's Shed there.

 We didn't camp in Cygnet, we stayed up in the hills behind Cygnet on Jetty Road in a delightful one bedroom cabin called Kings Hill Accommodation. The owners Vicki and James made us feel at home and have decorated and fitted out the cabin beautifully. We enjoyed a wonderful couple of nights there, enjoying the pristine country air and the views.

Campsites

We camped about an hour's drive from Uluru at King's Canyon campsite. This was much more economical than staying at the resorts adjacent to Uluru. It was very hot when we were there with lots of flies annoying everyone, although we didn't succumb to the face nets like most people were wearing. Uluru was everything we expected and more.

Uluru

Needless to say we didn't take the King's Canyon Rim Walk, although 20 years ago I might have given it a go. The Kings Creek Walk doesn't lead into the canyon anymore which is disappointing because of damage from rain and landslides a couple of years ago.

The Olgas were magnificent and the walking tracks there and into the gorge were relatively easy to access. The domes of the Olgas to us were as impressive as Ayers Rock, possibly because of their accessibility.

The Olgas

There is so much more I could write about this trip however that is probably enough for now. As I work through our hundreds of photos I am sure to be inspired to share some more of our experiences with you. We were very thankful that everything went well without any dramas and that we stayed healthy. Although I did need to hunt down a dentist at Ulverstone when we were camped at Penguin, which thankfully was just down the road. I was a bit nervous about it at the time but he was excellent, and a really nice young man.

Thanks for reading and safe and enjoyable travels if you are taking to the roads.

Best wishes

Pauline.

BEEF CHOW MEIN, PALEO STYLE

Paleo style cooking can be easy  and economical. I have been cooking this dish for years using cabbage, mince and curry powder, even before Paleo became a dietary phenomena promoting a healthy lifestyle and weight loss. It is a family favourite and very easy and nutritious to make