Herb Barrell


Steve and I have been meaning to do this awhile. It's a half wine barrell planted out with herbs. We planted some parsley, flat leaf parsley, mint, peppermint, dill, basil, and rosemary. We'll add more herbs later.

Thai Fritters


Dinner tonight was Thai corn fritters with sweet chilli sauce.

Ingredients:
3 corn cobs boiled for 8 mins and corn cut off the cob.
1 garlic clove, crushed
small bunch of fresh coriander (cilantro) chopped
1 small fresh red or green chilli seeded and finely chopped
1 tbsp soy sauce
4 tbsp water
75g rice flour or plain flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
salt and ground pepper

oil for frying
sweet chilli sauce to serve

Method: Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Add spoonfuls of mixture making roundish fritters, turn over the fritters when they starting to bubble around the edges (Fry for about 1-2 mins each side).

Drain on paper towel to remove excess oil.

Honey Cinnamon Apples



Method: Cut apples or pears in half and cut out the seeds. Put a little butter on a baking dish and place fruit on top. Squeeze some lemon juice over the apples, sprinkle over some cinnamon, push in some cloves, and pour a generous amount of honey over the fruit and bake in the oven until golden and mushy. Very tasty with vanilla icecream!! I often bake apples or pears this way.

Broome Entry One - Cable Beach

Our trip to Broome was a fantastic. I have zillions of photos so I picked some of the best and most relevant to my journal entries.

On the first few days we went for morning walks/ swims at Cable beach. In the evenings we watched the sun set over the ocean.

On Monday after brunch at the Old Zoo cafe,

we went to Willie Creek Pearl farm to see how they culture the pearls.

When we were on the boat this magnificent Osprey was flying around.

Then we went to the Old Zoo Cafe for a delicious dinner. Tuesday morning we caught the bus to Ganthuame Point and saw the light house and old pool in the rocks.

Then headed on the long walk back down the beach. Cooled off with a swim in the ocean.

Packed up our things and took it on the bus into town and dropped it off at Mangrove resort. Got groceries for dinner and went back to our cabin at Palm Grove. We had beers at the beach on top of the sand dunes before going back to cook fish and rice for dinner.

Broome Entry Two - The Kimberley

On Wednesday morning we got picked up by the 4WD bus to be taken to the Kimberley’s. We traveled to Geike Gorge. Along the way, we stopped to see termite mounds, a giant Boab tree that is predicted to be around 5000 years old.

Then we drove on to the Fitzroy River the line on the cliffs is where the water usually gets up to during the wet season. At Fitzroy Crossing we went on an entertaining Ranger guided cruise along Geike Gorge to see the spectacular cliffs and the freshwater crocs lounging around on the banks of the river. As well as the crocs we saw two wallabies up on the banks of the river.

Towards sunset, we arrived at the Fitzroy River Lodge where we set up our tents and swags under the Kimberley night sky. Our guides Mark (who was from Wales) and Heather cooked a barbeque dinner. We fell asleep gazing at the clear black sky spattered by the Milky Way.

After breakfast we traveled to Tunnel Creek, along the way saw the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen! I wanted to get out and explore at my own pace, but it all whizzed past in a blur. There where jagged rocky cliffs of the Napier Ranges jutting out of the earth (an ancient reef system which was under the ocean millions of years ago). And there the beautiful Boab trees grow out of the yellowed grass and even out of the rocks themselves. There where spindly bushes growing all about with floppy yellow flowers and no leaves at this time of year.

We arrived at Tunnel creek a 750-metre cave system carved through the Napier Range, a Devonian reef system 350 million years old. Here, we made our way through the water in the dark and came out the other end at a natural pool.

Two women went for a swim while the rest of us sat and took in all the life whizzing around us. There where bright orange/ red dragonflies and two Water Monitors. We saw two varieties of bats living near an opening of the cave.

There are examples of amazing indigenous rock-art all around these caves and outside. We also heard the story of

Jandamarra, the freedom fighter who used the tunnel as a hideout in the late 1800's.

Mark then drove us to Windjana Gorge for lunch. We walked into the Gorge where we saw the fossils of sea creatures in the rock face.

The guide Mark showed us an ants nest made of leaves which you can eat. Apparently the abdomen of the ant tastes like sweet limes.

Heading towards the water we saw a young trout fish and striped black and white fish. There are hundreds of freshwater crocodiles living in the waters along the banks of the river. We walked along the beach and past the pink Fertility Rock and saw some crocs.

This large croc was eying off my legs. The cliffs of Windjana Gorge are lined with gum trees where white Corella's call to each other.

On the way back to Broome we stopped at the traveling trough in the Kimberley cattle country.