Gather around the campfire

 Campfire's burning, campfire's burning,

 Draw nearer, draw nearer

In the glowing, in the glowing,

We'll sing and be happy. 

Girl Guide camp song sung in rounds

"A campfire is a magic thing and of pivotal importance in stock-camps. It was everything to us. Our hot water, our stove, our warmth and our comfort. In the dark solitude of the night, or the chill colourless dawn, the campfire was like a friend to us. It was the focal point of our living space, pulling everyone to it. In the evening we ringers would gravitate from the shadows to within the fire's glow. There, perched on an upturned drum, or squatting on one heel with a pannikin of tea resting on our leg, we would absent-mindedly gaze at the embers, and ponder on the day just over. In our constantly tired state it was easy to become mesmerized by the gently flickering flames, playing around the edges of a piece of coolibah or woollybutt. More relaxing even than watching wavelets lapping on a shoreline, the campfire's soporific effect soon saw us heading sleepily to our sways. We never sat up late in the stock-camp."

From "They Even Paid Me", the memoirs of John Wells, Kimberley stockman, compiled by Janet Wells.  2015, page 89

Even though I've never been in a stock-camp, the words above written by Kimberley stockman, John Wells, embodies how I feel about campfires. They are one the the things I love most about camping out in the bush. After dinner we all gravitate in our camp-chairs to the small circle of light surrounding the campfire and sit talking, and looking up at the sky ablaze with stars. And of course marshmallows and a mug of port or hot chocolate goes down well too.

The moon comes up through the trees as we settle around the campfire

We've had some beautiful camps over the years, and now that the spring wildflower season has arrived I am itching to get out in the bush with my camera.

And honestly the sunrises and sunsets are much more vivid when you are out camping.

 Thank you so much for stopping by.  Do you go camping? What do you like about camping? Perhaps you might like to tell us about it in your comments. I value your comments and look forward to hearing from you. I will try to visit your blogs in return. Have a wonderful week.  

You might also like:
Dehydrating food for camping 
On the road in the Kimberley, Western Australia 
Camping in the Western Australian wheatbelt 

I am linking up to the link-ups below. Please click on the links to see fabulous contributions from around the world - virtual touring at its best!

   
All Seasons
Mosaic Monday 

Our World Tuesday

Pictorial Tuesday 

ThroughMy Lens 

Image-in-ing
Wednesday Around the World at Communal Global
Travel Photo Thursday 

The Lovin' Life Team over at: Deep Fried Fruit and 50 Shades of Age
Little Things Thursday

Life in Reflection

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Dehydrating food for camping saves space and weight

I told a friend the other day that I was dehydrating food in preparation for a camping trip and she wanted to know what it was all about. 

 I was first introduced to dehydrated food when I went walking on the Bibbulmun Track in Western Australia with a two friends a few years ago.  Berndard walked the whole track (nearly 1,000kms in total), and knew just about everything that one would want to know about dehydrating food. When you are walking for a week at a time and carrying all your food with you, you need to keep weight to a minimum.  Here is a great blog site that Bernard told me about (although I notice it hasn't been added to lately) - Dehydrated bushwalking food

 Dehydrating food for a hiking or camping trip is great for both space saving and weight saving and extends the life of the food in comparison the taking fresh food.The drying process only minimally affects its nutritional value. 

Check out some facts at -  Greensmoothie - dehydrating facts - who says:
 Drying food only minimally affects its nutritional value. Most research has been on foods that were commercially dried. When you dry foods at home under gentle conditions (correct temperature and a reasonable drying period) you produce a high-quality nutrient-rich food.
Compared with canning, freezing and baking, all of which involve extreme temperatures, food drying is the least damaging form of food preservation. 

Dehydrated potatoes

 We always taking fresh fruit and vegetables with us, but I also dry vegetables such as carrots, corn and potatoes to use when the fresh variety run out.  You can also dry fresh fruit in season, like apples, apricots etc or make fruit leathers. From my experience the fruit leathers require no sugar and are naturally sweet and delicious. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of them here.

Follow the recommendations of the manufacturer of your dehydrator for preparation. For these carrots I peel, slice thinly, then steam for 5 minutes, rinse under cold water, and then lay out the circles on the trays as you can see here.  The processing of the dehydrating usually takes all day (depending on what you are dehydrating), so start first thing in the morning to be completed by early evening.

 I also dry mince and make a few meals like curry, spaghetti bolognaise and chilli con carne and dry them as well. But these I keep in the freezer as they contain meat and I want to be sure they are not going to spoil.  Here I am dehydrating Chilli Con Carne. Can you believe that is 400 grams of meat, plus vegetables in each of those two small zip lock bags?

Lay out your cooked meal or vegetables, pop on the lid of the dehydrator, and turn it on to the recommended temperature. An important tip here is to either put the dehydrator in the shed or in the laundry with the door through to the house closed and the outside door and window open, otherwise the smell of the drying will invade your house!

It is also not a good idea to mix flavours in the same drying batch - for instance I wouldn't dry mince on one tray and apple slices on another.  But carrots, corn and potatoes can happily be dried together in the same batch. 

 
 When you are on your camping trip, the morning you want to use one of the dehydrated meals or dried mince, just take out the packet, put it in a box with a sealable lid and cover with water. At this point also add any dried vegetables you intend using. By the end of the day the food will be re-hydrated and ready to reheat or cook into what ever meal you are making. Easy! 




I have just read on the Dehydrated bushwalking food  site that when they get to their campsite they boil some water, empty their snaplock bag of food into the pot, add the boiling water, stir, pop on the lid and leave for half to one hour. Then boil the rehdryrated ingredients, add a packet sauce mix, and simmer for 3-5 minutes. Add rice, pasta, cous cous or noodles, and simmer for another 5 minutes. Easy! 




Another camp food my son always asks for is fish rolls.  They are made from a tin of fish, grated carrot, potato, onion, and a curry sauce mixture, rolled into pastry and cooked in the oven. They can be eaten hot or cold. For camping trips I freeze and take out on the day how many we need. They are a delicious on the road lunch time food.

Just remember to take them out of the freezer in time to thaw out by lunch time, or you will be trying to defrost them on the dashboard! Is this what they call dashboard dining?

There are quite a few sites on the net about dehydrating food. As well as the ones I have already mentioned  are a couple that might be of interest -
Back packing chef
The Camp Gal

And my previous post about camp food - 
Camp food - touring the Western Australian northern wheatbelt

Thanks for stopping by. 

I am linking up to Mosaic Monday, Travel Photos Monday, Our World Tuesday, Tuesday Around the World, Travel Photo Thursday, What's It Wednesday, and Oh the Places I've Been. Please click on the links to see fabulous contributions from around the world - virtual touring at its best!

Mosaic Monday
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Tuesday Around the World  
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 Oh The Places I've Been

Camp food - Western Australian wheatbelt granite outcrops

We are just back from a seven day camping trip visiting granite outcrops in the north eastern Western Australian wheat belt.  We travelled nearly 2,000 kilometres and camped at seven different camp sites in seven nights and eight days.

The "Wheatbelt Way" and the "Granite Loop Discovery Trail" are two self-drive tours promoted by WA Tourism.  We hadn't toured around the north-east corner of the wheatbelt before, and our trip combined some of each of these drives. The wheatbelt and its granite outcrops make an interesting tour through farm and bushland, with places to camp, bird and animal life, interesting historical sites and a profusion of wildflowers during spring. 

Granite outcrops are scattered throughout the Western Australian wheatbelt. They were used by early explorers as places to camp, water and feed their horses, take their bearings and map their progress. Before this indigenous aboriginal people would use caves as shelter and source water from the gnamma holes. These rock holes hold water for a long time after rain and are important for human and animal life during drought.  The aboriginals would visit favoured holes regularly to keep them clean.  When European settlers arrived, they harvested the water from the rocks by building walls to channel the water into dams and tanks.

Today these granite outcrops are great places to bush camp (ie basic or no facilities). 
Below you can see our seven campsites - 
from top right - Congelan Dam at Dryanda north west of Narrogin, Billiburning Rock north of Beacon, Elachbutting Rock east of Bonnie Rock, Baladjie Rock north of Westonia, Kokerbin Rock west of Bruce Rock, Karalee Rock east of Yellowdine, and Beringbooding Rock east of Bonnie Rock.

Camp food when you are on the road every day moving on to your next destination, exploring and setting up camp, can be a bit of a challenge. So that we can easily organise our camping food and supplies we have come up with a list that we have saved on our computer and download a few weeks before we set out. We check the gear in our camper trailer and cross off items on the list as they are packed. It really helps with meal planning and making sure we have all the food supplies we need before we go. And also with making sure we have everything else we need - it wouldn't pay to forget your pillow and sleeping bag!

There are lots of camp cooking books available. But I find that when you we on the road, I don't have the inclination or the time to fiddle around with complicated camp cooking. And often it is a fight to keep the flies and other flying insects at bay while cooking and eating. So I want easy quick to cook meals. The up side is some of the spectacular locations we have camped at.

Someone asked me the other day what meals do we have. So here is a small list of some of our easy meal choices - 
Curry and rice (pre-cooked), chilli-con-carne with potato or pasta (pre-cooked), chicken and corn schnitzels with vegetables (cook all the vegies in one pot), BBQ steak with vegetables, diced sausage rings with packaged fried rice mix, tin tuna with packaged pasta mix, spaghetti bolognaise made from dehydrated mince & a packet sauce mix & tin of tomatoes.
For dessert - custard pots, creamed rice and tinned fruit - none of which require refrigerating.

We do have a portable fridge/freezer that goes in the back of our 4WD, so that does make keeping food cold or frozen.  If you have a dehydrator you can dehydrate mince and cooked meals like curry and rehydrate them with water in a sealed container the day you want to use them. You can also dehydrate carrot rings, apple and banana rings etc.

Staples include potatoes, carrots, tomato paste sachets, cup-a-soup, rice, pasta, casserole mixes, dehydrated or tinned vegetables, dried fruit, nuts, dried biscuits. 

For lunches we have fish rolls (a favourite), meat and salad rolls, noodle cups, cup-a-soup, tinned fish, cold sausages etc. You can see the fish rolls in the middle picture here - thawing on the dashboard as we drove along because I hadn't taken them out of the car freezer early enough - dash-board dining!

Breakfast choices include cereal, toast, scrambled eggs, eggs and bacon and packaged pancake mix. 

And of course camping wouldn't be complete without sunset drinks with cheese and savoury biscuits, and later on around the fire, chocolate and a hot drink or port, and marshmallows toasted on sticks over the fire. It is nice to have a few luxuries when you are camping!

Wouldn't you love to have dinner under a sunset like this?
What sort of food do you take camping?

 Thanks for stopping by - I look forward to hearing from you. Please click on "comments" below to comment.  Thanks!

I hope you have enjoyed reading this post. I will be back later with more stories and images from the north-eastern Western Australian wheatbelt.

And yes there were wildflowers - but that will be another post too! You can find my guest post about photographing wildflowers on Jo Castro's travel and lifestyle blog - Zigazag - please click on the link here - Zigazag

To find out more about touring the Western Australian wheatbelt - click here - Wheatbelt Tourism and Wheatbelt Way

I am linking up with Mosaic Monday at Little Red House. To see the work of Mary and other wonderful contributors, please click on the link here - Mosaic Monday

  You might also like - click on the links here to go to -

On The Road in the Kimberley

Camping in the beauty of WA's National Parks