Presenting the next couple of months of our lives on the road brings with it a challenge....what to include and what to leave out?
Given that we have already explored and photographed the town and surrounds on our previous visits, I have no intention of repeating that. Kurrimine Beach has barely changed since our last visit. In any event we were here to relax with friends, enjoy the warm weather and generally have a good time. We were now in holiday mode.
Wintering at the Kurrimine Beach Holiday Park is a social affair. Many here, including us, are regulars.....'Kurrimine Boomerangs' as we have become known. This year we were to be joined by several couples who we had previously met all over the country. Our very good friends Rhonda and John Vogt were already here, as I mentioned in my last. Others were on the way.
Needless to say the social life can become a bit hectic. Daily 'happy hours' at various sites (ours was a focal point) are par for the course. On Friday evenings (apart from the monthly market night at the nearby King Reef Hotel) all who are willing and able (and that's invariably all the regulars at least) congregate in the camp kitchen where the notorious 'Kurrimine Karaoke' is preceded by wonderful food feasts, all prepared and provided courtesy of the park staff.
We have never come across anything like it in all our travels. Sausage sizzles, hamburger night, soup night, wine tasting.....the list goes on. And the piece-de-resistance.....'Xmas in July', a bash of significance as we shall see later. Folk actually book for this months in advance.
But let me begin on a smaller scale, and here I must point out that I've selected but a few social events out of many for two reasons. Firstly, I am acutely aware that these are somewhat self-indulgent and secondly, the photos of several of these bashes have disappeared courtesy of the hackers who decimated our files in Goulburn.
As I think I have mentioned previously, Liz downloads much of what I have taken onto a hard drive, but she edits according to her tastes. This doesn't always coincide with what I have had in mind when snapping away. I have been left to manage with what we have retained (which thankfully is quite a bit....the thought of having lost the lot does not bear thinking about).
Site 13, that occupied by the Vogts, is an ideal spot for a large gathering. Within a couple of days of our arrival we put it to very good use. It was Jo's birthday.
Many of the Kurrimine clan descended on site 13 for her birthday bash.
I should explain at this point that Liz and I had first met Jo and her Canadian husband Gordon many years ago at the Bellinger River Caravan Park at Repton (just south of Coffs Harbour) on the east coast (this was the park being managed at the time by Tracy and Corey....now the managers at Kurrimine Beach). They now spend many months at KB each winter and are very well known to all who come here regularly.
The guest of honour was soon presented with the obligatory cake and candles (which Gordon had prevailed on us to hide in our van throughout the day)
and the party continued as the sun dipped very low in the western sky. As you can see, Liz was well under way, looking resplendent in a hat borrowed from John V.
This celebration did kick on. In fact by the time stumps were drawn, there was no longer any need for hats. We were even treated to a superb sunset as a reward for our persistence!
Our second large scale bash at site 13 was a real novelty event. By this time the Allendens and the Eleftherious, two couples we had met in Cooktown and Charleville respectively some years ago, had arrived at KB. Our social group was rapidly expanding.
Denis A travels with a portable camp oven rig which he happened to mention during one particular happy hour. That was it.....a plan was immediately hatched. What's the point of occupying a secluded corner site without making the most of it? A lamb camp oven roast followed by a campfire was the unanimous decision. Managerial permission was obtained, food procurement and preparation tasks were allocated, and the wood was gathered.
Denis A travels with a portable camp oven rig which he happened to mention during one particular happy hour. That was it.....a plan was immediately hatched. What's the point of occupying a secluded corner site without making the most of it? A lamb camp oven roast followed by a campfire was the unanimous decision. Managerial permission was obtained, food procurement and preparation tasks were allocated, and the wood was gathered.
At the appointed hour the corner site of the redoubtable Vogts saw another (different) gathering of the clan.
The small camp oven was lit and the meat soon began to sizzle.
Caps and corks were popped and the nibbles were passed around. I was grateful for the waiter service....we had enjoyed a particularly boisterous Friday karaoke the evening before and yours truly, who had been encouraged to take a leading role with the microphone, was still a little jaded.
As mantle of evening enveloped us the meat was carved and the various plates and pots of veggies appeared from surrounding vans and were laid out on the self serve tables.
What a wonderful feed this was. There is no doubt that a good camp oven roast takes some beating. And after feasting to our hearts' content, what next?.....well, off with the oven, in with more wood and it was time to sit around the campfire and solve the problems of the world! Thank goodness for park curfews.....we had to give it all away at 2200 hours which is probably just as well. Someone had cracked open the port!
The social activity 'Chez Marshies' was a little more subdued, apart from happy hours that is, some of which grew serious legs. We shared several convivial meals with the Vogts ranging from simple sausage sizzles (yes, it does occasionally get a bit chilly at night even in the tropics).
when all was completely informal,
to slightly more elaborate work on the Baby Q
and a much more formal dining setting. After all, this grilled offering had been complemented by John's special mushroom sauce (see above). The least we could do was set a more fitting table under the Marshies' awning!
The Vogts left well before us, but not before Big 'Bob the Dog', their black labrador-samoyed cross, had been given a good scrub in the park's dog wash.
The small camp oven was lit and the meat soon began to sizzle.
Caps and corks were popped and the nibbles were passed around. I was grateful for the waiter service....we had enjoyed a particularly boisterous Friday karaoke the evening before and yours truly, who had been encouraged to take a leading role with the microphone, was still a little jaded.
As mantle of evening enveloped us the meat was carved and the various plates and pots of veggies appeared from surrounding vans and were laid out on the self serve tables.
What a wonderful feed this was. There is no doubt that a good camp oven roast takes some beating. And after feasting to our hearts' content, what next?.....well, off with the oven, in with more wood and it was time to sit around the campfire and solve the problems of the world! Thank goodness for park curfews.....we had to give it all away at 2200 hours which is probably just as well. Someone had cracked open the port!
The social activity 'Chez Marshies' was a little more subdued, apart from happy hours that is, some of which grew serious legs. We shared several convivial meals with the Vogts ranging from simple sausage sizzles (yes, it does occasionally get a bit chilly at night even in the tropics).
when all was completely informal,
to slightly more elaborate work on the Baby Q
and a much more formal dining setting. After all, this grilled offering had been complemented by John's special mushroom sauce (see above). The least we could do was set a more fitting table under the Marshies' awning!
The Vogts left well before us, but not before Big 'Bob the Dog', their black labrador-samoyed cross, had been given a good scrub in the park's dog wash.
On the morning of their departure he took up his normal travelling position in the back of their 4WD
and we, of course, posed for the obligatory farewell photograph with the agreed plan that we would visit them in Victoria in mid-February 2016. As always we had really enjoyed their company and were very sorry to be saying goodbye.
But it was not long before other Kurrimine Beach regulars and some new-comers were on the scene. The first to arrive were Yadja and Jerry, a Polish immigrant couple. More of them shortly.
Almost at the same time, The Finis had also pulled in. Trish and Silvio are old Kurrimine Beach mates whose arrival lifted the standard of my daily coffee to considerably greater heights. In the true Italian tradition, the Finis travel with a wonderful coffee machine.....morning tea in their van was a much more uplifting experience than we could manage. A genuine 'long black' from a serious machine does run rings around my usual morning 'instant'.
What could I do but reciprocate? Again the Baby Q was put through its paces
.
but not before I had presented an entree of freshly caught (that's another story) spotted mackerel fish fingers.
Italians, Poles and Aussies.....true to the flag we fly, site 12 became a mini United Nations for the evening.
Yadja and Jerry now live at Halls Gap in the Victorian Grampians, (where we have another standing invitation to pop in) but prior to that had occupied an apartment in Adelaide. Where?....right opposite the Glenelg SLSC (of course!).....we realised that there had probably been some evenings a few years ago when we were actually all in the upstairs club bar at the same time, but as I have said earlier, we are now beyond being surprised by these encounters.
These have been but a few examples of many occasions when our annex area became the venue for fun and frolics, but I think these couple of offerings are more than enough. As I said at the outset, these missives are a little self-indulgent, and will be kept to a minimum lest I bore you beyond the normal!
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