In North Queensland the Camping season traditionally comes to a close between November and February – it’s way too hot to camp and too wet on those backroads!

To mark the end of the camping season and the start of the festive season the Townsville and District 4wd Club hosts a Christmas Party every year with the social committee deciding the destination as well as just how silly they can get us to be after a few ales and some Christmas Food. This year was no exception with a large number of members heading up to Jourama Falls https://parks.des.qld.gov.au/parks/jourama-falls-paluma/camping for an overnight camp to mark the end of the season and get a little festive!

We got away at lunchtime Friday to make it a 2 night camping trip. Campsite was a nice grassed shady spot on the creek side of the falls next to our good friends who also managed to get away from Townsville early. The fun and games included Jingle Balls and charades as well as a few other questionable games, Billy got decked out in Christmas Lights for the occasion. It was one of the hottest nights of 2020 with humidity also very high- ha ha Ray thought he had it all planned, taking along the new Honda generator and expecting to crank it up so that he could run the air con and have all the Mod Cons! No generators are allowed in Paluma National Park Campgrounds so we had to make do with a fan hung at the end of the bed to keep us cool at night – alcohol definitely helped! The swimming holes at Jourama Falls Campground are beautiful as is the birdlife. We did not want to head back to Townsville and were last to leave the campgrounds on Sunday afternoon.

4 days off around New Year and it was time to test the air con, act like tourists, soak up some beach life, what better place to do this than Dingo Beach. Leaving Townsville on New Years Eve we headed down to Hydeaway Bay Caravan Park where we were booked for 3 nights, this being the only place you can camp near Dingo Beach. https://hydeawaybaycaravanpark.com.au/

The opportunity to catch up with our youngest Daughter who lives and works in Airlie Beach which is just 40 odd km away was also a plus. The Hydeaway Bay Caravan Park is very well kept with owners that showed us through their lovingly restored Double Decker Leyland Bus. Both being ex contiki tour bus driver’s and having driven all around Europe in these buses for many year’s, they knew exactly what they wanted to travel around Australia in so they imported one, and it is a credit to them how they have restored it, in particular the hand made woodwork features inside.

Nearby Dingo Beach is spectacular, we both loved it, magnificent little patch of Australia with crystal clear water to swim in and a really laid back pub on the beachfront where we had New Year dinner and drinks with Tyneal and Drew. It was hot, as you would expect at this time of year, there was also a few rain showers over the 3 days, also to be expected at this time of year.
The luxury of being able to turn on the air-con was the best, and one of the reasons for purchasing the Hybrid – now we can camp in the summer having the luxury of air-con available to us. Loving our C3e, Ray has made a metal plate that fits like a small umbrella on top of the Darche Awning to stop what was a small trickle of water coming in around the post over the kitchen area – this is a big issue with the Darche Awning’s and something that needs attention if you don’t want water dripping down on the outside kitchen during a heavy shower of rain.

I am often told that I make a really good Damper – I have been practicing for year’s and I still have the odd failure. My first attempts at cooking an authentic Damper cooked over coals weren’t too crash hot at all, so me being me, I had to find a way to practice my campfire cooking so that I was able to produce something that I was happy to share with others at the happy hour table.

How did I do this?

• By enlisting the help of my partner in crime and constructing a campfire pit at home!
• We regularly lit the ‘home campfire’ on weekends and began to experiment with not only damper, but curries, pizza, cakes and desserts.

The campfire is only as good as the wood you collect and good wood makes great coals that will retain their heat long enough for the dinner to cook in the camp oven, so always aim to have good solid iron-bark logs on the fire. If this isn’t available you can use heat beads, but the heat wont be as intense.

It is always best to pre heat the camp oven, although I must confess I dont always do this. Damper needs to be lifted up from the base of the camp oven, over the year’s I have used a few different things to do this. A cake or steamer rack that fits neatly inside the camp oven is ideal, have also used an upturned cake tin, sitting this inside the bottom of the camp oven and then placing the damper on top of that. I always dust my uncooked damper in flour and wrap it in foil before it goes in the camp oven as it is easier to remove once cooked.

Damper needs plenty of coals on the lid so that there is enough top heat to get it to rise, and just a few on the bottom and around the side. Try not to open and check its progress, although I have been guilty of doing this on more than one occasion. 15-20 minutes with good coals and plenty of top heat and your damper should be perfect.

Below is my Damper recipe modified from a camp oven cook book that I have had for year’s. The addition of the tomato sauce gives a hint of flavour and makes it that bit more interesting.

• INGREDIENTS
• 3/4 cup of milk
• 1 Tblspn butter
• 2 Tblspn Tomato Sauce
• 2 cups S.R.Flour
• 1 cup grated cheese
• 1/4 tspn salt
• METHOD
• Mix the flour, salt and butter until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.
• Add 3/4 of the cheese
• Now mix the milk and tomato sauce together, saving a little of the milk to glaze the dough with, then add the liquid to the dry mix.
• When the mixture is a nice firm dough place it on a floured board and roll into a large round bun – dust with flour.
• Baste the top with milk and sprinkle with the remaining cheese.
• Wrap damper in foil being careful to leave room at the top so that cheese does not stick to the top, place it in a pre-heated camp oven and sit on a hot bed of coals with plenty of coals on the lid of the camp oven.
• 15-20 minutes later your fresh damper should be cooked and ready to enjoy!