Tequila, Bushwalking, SciFi, Mayhem

2006 : Esperance

Well we survived yet another Trek…
This was going to be an interesting trek - heading to a spot we hadn’t heard of (and only one of us had been to). I check the weather and it wasn’t looking good - a weekend of rain, basically.
The usual Thursday evening packing event preceded the trek, and we got everything packed and into Mikes car reasonably easily. The hard part would be the following day, getting Justins gear in to the boot as well…

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Friday rolled around, and Justin, Jim, and myself got a lift with Mike from town to home. We got the boot packed - just - and headed off around 6.30ish…
We stopped at Kingston to grab a few last minute supplies, which were going to be a tight fit, as we we already busting at the seams. I zipped off to the butchers to grab a bit of steak for dinner, along with mince for the chilli. We then went in to the supermarket to grab snacks, water, and anything else of value, and lastly popped in to the bottleshop to grab some Tooheys Extra Dry Platinum for a nightcap, along with 2 bags of ice. We headed off… The weather was pretty cool at this stage, and got cooler and wetter the further south we got.
About an hour and a half later we arrived, Mike parked the car, and we began to cart all the camping gear around to a picnic shelter - it was starting to rain…

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We found the spot we would be camping at, and as it was dark we weren’t really sure where we were - we could hear the roar of a river very close-by.
Half an hour later and we’d set up temporary home in the picnic shelter, and began generally snacking & cooking dinner. Dinner was steak and onions - very yummy… washed down with a few cold TED Platinums.

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We got the chance to set up our new lighting rigs - the small cheap UFO LED light, and the two multi-LED strip lights. They proved extremely good - providing more light than we were used to.
The rain had slowed a little bit, so we took the chance to put up the big tent, and move everything in and out of the cold wind.
We got stuck in to the Margeritas once the beer ran out, and proceeded to listen to some tunes late in to the night. (very late! around 3am according to the last photo!)
I found that the UFO light was awesome (but heavy on the AA batteries), the Strip LED were good, but not great, and my headlamp lasted all of about 3 hours before dying… (I ended up taping my Luxion hand torch to it!)
At this stage only Jim had put his tent up, most of us we’re too buggered to get out and do it in the dark & cold, so we crashed in the big tent (Mike, Justin & myself).
I had a really good nights sleep - I just hope my snoring didn’t keep Justin & Mike awake for too long! My inflatable cheapie lilo does a damned good job!
I got up and had a pee at about 7am, then went back to bed to snooze some more. I got up about 11am and the boys were already up preparing the wood fire!

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I got busy chopping some onions and bacon, and then breakfast (or lunch as it was) was on and cooking…
There’s nothing like a big plate of fried bacon, onion & eggs to get you up and at ‘em!
Once we’d eaten, we did a bit of lying around in the sun, along with a bit of exploring.

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Justin & Mike both put their tents up, along with Mikes camping hammock. The place was nice - nestled in the elbow of the Esperance River - if you had a fly-rod and some flys, I think you could get some decent trout! The weather stayed nice all day, and we had hopes that the weekend would turn out OK weatherwise.
The odd thing was the lack of animals - no possums, no wallabies, no paddymelons - nothing! It was a change!

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After a bit of a wander around late in the arvo (I had a close call with a snake - it bit me on the boot), it was time to prepare dinner!
I got started on the onions, peeling and dicing a good dozen or two, then Jim did the garlic.

We got the fire going, but it was really ready for the pot, so we cooked it on Mikes super camping stove - it did a fine job!
Pretty soon we had the onions browned, the garlic added, and in went the mince.
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I let it stew for a while, knowing that a lot of fat would come out of both the mince and the bacon - I poured it off.
Once the meat was browned, I added the kidney beans, and tomatoes, and generous amounts of chilli flakes - we were going to use a chilli paste - but it turned out to be non-Justin friendly - still we had two containers of chilli flakes, so there was no lack of heat.
By this stage the fire was going great, so the pot went on to griddle to simmer away. Regular checking of the pot showed it bubbling away nicely. Taste tests showed the heat was building too!
Mmmm chilli!

After about an hour and a half, I estimated the chilli was done, and it was time to break out the tortillas. Mmmm Burritos con carne del TasTrek!
The other strange thing was the lack of Mosquitos - I’m usually a magnet for them, but by this stage, I’d only found one bite!

Camp site at night

We then sat around the fire, talking and listening to tunes, and trying to outmaneuver the smoke which kept following us where-ever we sat. It was at this stage my brand new camping stool failed and broke an armrest. Useless bloody thing…
We partook of many cups of the Doctor during the night, and were pretty merry when Jim brought out the Tequila, Lime & Salt! Wazaaaaaaaaa!

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During the evening we were entertained by a roo-shootin’ bogan trying to drive his 4×4 in to the river - he headed down a track on the other side of the river that ended in the drink! He eventually got turned around and went away.

We let the fire die down a bit, and then headed for bed - again I slept in the main tent, being generally too lazy to put up my own tent.

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Again, I slept well, and woke up around 10am, finding that it was looking pretty grey and threatening… Wasn’t much we could do but try and get the fire going again, and get some breakfast on…

We went with the usual brekkie again, onions, bacon, eggs - but I added a bit of a twist - adding some salsa to the scrambled eggs, making a semi mexican breakfast… very yummy!

After lunch it started raining, and it got heavier and heavier as the afternoon wore on.

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Eventually we had to bite the bullet and start packing, in the rain.

It was wet and it was muddy, but we got everything back in the car and drove our way back home, another trek completed.

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