Stork's 4wd & Camping Adventures: Christmas 2013 Camping

Good news for us was we organised ourselves to go away for Christmas for a couple of weeks - yay! Decided we'd head back up to Inskip to our "Secret Spot" (or not so secret spot nowadays) and take the big boat along as we have a few friends coming and going while we're there.

Got all the business stuff organised by Thursday 19th December and all the stuff packed into the camper after I finished work - Phew! All we had to do was pack the "extra" stuff into the boat on Friday morning before we left - "extra" stuff means we took the pergola up this year for extra shade, the 98lt esky for all our drinks, leg of ham & cooked prawns, green prawn, bugs, sand crabs we were still to pickup from our trawler man at Tin Can Bay (it's not what you know, it's who you know!). Plus we were taking the Ozpig for the first time camping with us, due to the restricted fire ban that was in place (yes, we checked the National Parks website and they stipulated the "Ozpig" was allowed as it is a contained fire vessel) and a few other bits and pieces we tossed into the boat (eg. Crab Pots and CHRISTMAS LIGHTS of course).

We hit the road north from home around 7.30am on Friday 20th, first stop was fuel at the BP northbound at Forest Glen (Craig just literally ran out of time on Thursday after loading the camper and hooking up the boat to get fuel). Wasn't too much of a problem as we grabbed some yummy bacon & egg burgers for breakfast while we were there - I must say that servo really does offer some good ready to go breakfast tucker for the truckies, travellers and tradies, that I've seen anywhere in our travels and it's all fresh.

Onwards to Inskip she cried. Traffic heading north really wasn't too bad, I mean it's not like we break any speed records with the camper onboard and towing the 1600kg Southwind behind us. We are however curtious when passing lanes come up and can maintain the speed limit unless a rather steep hill presents itself to us, then we might drop back by about 10klms an hour uphill. The little Gayux really does itself proud pulling this load!

Excitement was building the further north we travelled, we're on holidays, we're camping, it's Christmas, the weather is supposed to be great - what's not to get excited about!!!!!!!
Filled up the camper & ute water tanks on the way past the filling station at Rainbow Beach and headed to our spot to setup. Arrived at 10.30am un-hitched the Southwind and left it up the top of the camp area before the soft sand (we'll take it around to Bullocks Point to launch it later).

Well I'll be buggered, there seems to be a lot more people who know about our little secret spot these days. Two years ago when we came up for Christmas it wasn't a problem getting a campsite for everyone to fit into the week before Christmas, in fact we were pretty much the only ones camped there in the week leading up to Christmas, but to our surprise when we got down to the campsites this year it was wall to wall camps and not a lot of space for us to fit into, as well as enough space for our mates joining us on Christmas day.... arggghhhhh!!

Long story short, we found a bit of a hole to squeeze into with enough space for our camper, the pergola and for our mates tents etc. - well just enough space! Slowly got everything set up and had a bite to eat for lunch, then took the Southwind to Bullock Point to launch it. Boat anchored out front, it's time to play with Boris and start relaxing!!

Boat anchored out front of camp -
time to relax!

Our camp

Mr Boris waiting to play on the beach

Business call, they must not have
got the memo about our holidays!

Dinner under way - I love our
Ozpig
(its 6.45pm believe it or not)

Yep, sausages

Sausages with Bok Choy Noodle
Salad.

We bought our Christmas cheer
along with us

Saturday 21st December, 2013

Craig had to duck into Tin Can Bay today to collect our Green & Cooked prawns, Moreton Bay bugs & Sand Crabs that we had ordered from our Trawler contact, plus he apparently forgot something for one of my Christmas present and wanted to grab that along with extra fuel for the boat. He had a big shopping day, while Boris and I stayed at camp. Just a lot of relaxing, reading, playing on the beach, swimming today. Putting up Christmas lights in the afternoon also. Couldn't go past Cooked Prawns & salad for dinner tonight.

Yep, brought his glow in the dark,
safety collar along.

Bringing our Christmas cheer to Inskip - oh yeah!

Sunday 22nd - Tuesday 24th December, 2013

A bit of fishing, along with the standard swimming, relaxing, reading, playing on the beach. To be honest this is kinda what we did everyday. One afternoon we decided it was time for Craig to have his haircut (we took the clippers up), so a couple of wines (beers for the boy) and away we clipped.

Cooking on the Ozpig nearly every night

A nice curry for dinner

Glorious weather

Relaxing

Except Christmas Eve when we went into Cooloola Cove Woolworths to grab our Roasting chicken for Christmas Day! Once back at camp though, we played on the beach, chatted to fellow campers and had fun.

Yep, we'll be popping the chook into the camp oven and whacking it on the Ozpig to cook, along with our leg of ham we have to bake!

Boris loves the beach

Playtime for Boris

I'm coming to get you Pelican,
no wait I can't touch the
bottom anymore OMG!

I love a nice b&w photo.

My boys

Everyone was out playing on the beach Christmas Eve, chatting, a few afternoon drinks - just having a great time under a beautiful clear blue sky, with thoughts of Santa coming sometime during the night and leaving gifts under their Christmas Trees. Yes there were Christmas Trees aplenty around the campgrounds, good stuff!

Christmas Eve Beach activities

Some wormy thing I found in the sand

Christmas Eve is normally when we'd go and see the houses with Christmas Lights at home and luckily there was plenty of Christmas cheer at Inskip and a few people had dressed their campsites up with Christmas lights - so off we go after dark to see the lights.

Our Christmas Lights

One neighbours Lights

Another neighbours lights

Wednesday 25th December 2013 - CHRISTMAS DAY!!!!

Well good news is Santa found us :) We put our little Xmas Tree in the camper and put our presents under it on Christmas Eve. First thing this morning we made coffee, then jumped back in the camper to open our presents. One of the coolest present I got from Craig was a rotisserie for the Ozpig (that's what the batteries he needed to buy were for), apparently his plan was to cook our chook on it today.

Merry Christmas!

Boris getting his Christmas present

A bit of interest there

Seems happy with that.

Our mate Simmo and his partner Leigh and her son Rex are arriving today around lunchtime. We'll be tucking into our Christmas lunch as soon as they get here - Roast Chicken, Baked Ham, tomato, red onion, garlic, basil, balsamic vinigar & crouton salad and green salad - oh I can hardly wait. Probably should have some breakfast first though.

Righto 11am the Ozpig gets fired up, the instructions for the new rotisserie are consulted and it is assembled, the chooky gets prepared then the skewer stuck up it's bum and the forks secured into it at either end. We're using fencing wire to tie up the chook as per the instructions (since I didn't know I was getting it for xmas I don't have any cooking string on board), the wire works just fine anyway. Right, we're ready to put it on and flick the switch for our first Ozpig rotisserie - how exciting!

Check it out, how cool is our
Rotisserie

Alrighty, next thing to organise is baking the ham on the bone - somehow....... Craig has to cut the big chuck of meat off the bone (you know the side I mean as the ham on the bone is to big to fit into our biggest camp oven we have on board), so we dressed the ham with seeded mustard, honey, rounds of oranges then topped it off with a squirt of honey again over the top of everything. Put the trivet on the bottom of the camp oven, then put a layer of alfoil on top for the lump of ham to sit on so it will bake in it's own juices still. Now I gotta say, that looks fabulous!

How good does that look! I'm even
more excited now.

Now to relax until Simmo & Leigh arrive. Beautiful day to just sit for a bit and look out over the water. Kept an eye on the chook (being the first one we've done this way n all) and I gotta say after about 2 hours Mr Chook is looking pretty good, still needs a bit longer though as it's a bit windy so some heat is being blown away. The ham is smelling divine and once the chook is done, we'll wrap it in alfoil put it on the warming plate and transfer the ham onto the grill plate on the fire - I'm dribbling just thinking about it :)

Chillin' waiting for our mates to arrive

Chooky's looking real good!

Simmo, Leigh, Rex & Mitch (that's Boris's best doggy mate) arrived around 1.30pm and chaos followed for a little bit while Boris & Mitch ran a muck catching up, talking to each other, Boris found it necessary to come back and go right off at Craig obviously he was a little bit over stimulated with Mitch's arrival - it was funny though. We met Leigh's son Rex for the first time and I believe it was Rex's first time at Inskip also. Eventually things calmed down, then Simmo unpacked all the camping gear into the general vicinity and promptly sat down to have a beer and think about erecting the tent (please refer to Simmo's tent erecting capabilities in the Inskip Christmas 2011 post).

The chaos starts

Boris going off at Craig with
excitement that Mitch is here

Finally we sat down for Christmas Lunch, starting with some local cooked prawns and homemade seafood sauce. For the main event we had roast chicken, baked ham, tomato/basil/crouton salad and green salad - it was oh so yummy.

The days with Simmo & Leigh consisted of beach driving/bogging/pulling out, some fishing/boating and relaxing of course. We did have to pop into the Rainbow Beach Hotel on Boxing Day so that the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race could be watched.

We had a few days to ourselves filled with peace and relaxation, until our other mates arrived.

Monday 30th December, 2013 - Friday 3rd January 2014

Our mates Gazza and Tracey arrived today around 12.30pm. We thought we'd do another chooky on the rotisserie for dinner tonight for them. They're hanging around until the 2nd January and we'll be heading home on the 3rd. Much of our time was taken up with swimming (first week we were there the high tide was the middle of the day, second week high tide was morning and afternoon - just perfect for everyone), a bit of boating/fishing, lots of relaxing ad chatting with a few of our neighbours. Other campers came and went during our stay.