TJM 4wd Weekend @ Neurum Creek Bush Retreat - Sept 2015

Friday 4th September 2015

Finally we needed gas for the camper before we could head off this afternoon, so it was 2.45pm by the time we hit the road to Neurum Creek Bush Retreat for our 2nd TJM 4wd Weekend - should be a bit of fun and what beautiful weather we look like having. We've got our mate Razzle & their Italian Exchange student joining us this time, it'll be something completely different for the young Italian boy I think.

We passed the typical Friday afternoon Bruce Highway traffic and a beautiful Thunderbird, 

Beautiful Thunderbird

Thunderbird

until turning off to head into Beerwah, up through Peachester and south toward Woodford to our destination. 

Country Roads, love 'em

more cows then cows out here!

Arrived

Pulled in at 4pm and it didn't look like too many people had arrived, besides Mandy & Scott from TJM maybe one other camp was set up.  The office was very busy, seems we arrived at the back end of a busy period for booking in.  Booking sorted, firewood paid for and we proceeded to the allocated campsites for TJM.

Picked a site that looked big enough for Razzle and ourselves.  Had a bit of a chat with Scott & Mandy from TJM and then it was time to start setting up - we'll be taking the camper off the car this weekend since we'll be doing a little bit of 4-w-d-ing.  Low and behold you'd never guess who pulled up next to us - 'Dumpling Man" (Colin & Karen), who won the first TJM weekend cook off.  They setup camp next door and Razzle on the other side of us.

All the introductions done and the chatting continued, continued through the first attempt at getting the campfire going and through the 2nd more successful attempt at getting the campfire going, through dinner and you get the idea.  Some of this chatter may have involved discussions/ribbing about the cooking comp tomorrow night and what was being cooked.  Made for a funny & enjoyable night really.
P.S.  Goodness knows what time it was when we went to bed.

Dinners being eaten & cooked

A bit of relaxing

Saturday 5th September, 2015

Up reasonably early today as we've got the briefing at 9am, then onward to the forest!!  Had a hankering for vegemite on toast this morning, so that's what we had.  We had a lovely mist roll in this morning very slowly, it made it's way down the road and through the camp ground like a big fluffy blanket.  Looked very dreamy with the campfire smoke mixing in with the mist.

We'll be out on the tracks for lunch, so has been advised to pack a picnic lunch for the trip.  Some nice sourdough rolls with my sandwich spread, tomato & ham will be nice (Razzle has offered to put our sandwiches in his fridge in the car for us), then of course I packed a couple of soft drinks, Tim Tams as you do & some twiggy sticks just for snacks.  Of course Razzle & Craig packed a couple of mid strength beers for lunch (very responsible taking the mid strength).....  Then there was tyre deflation going on, man 4wd chatting going on etc., etc.

Righto, 9am and time for the briefing.  Nothing too hard today on the tracks, Mt Mee is a very pretty area to drive through but the tracks are not difficult at all.  The most terrifying thing for some people would be the dropoffs to the side of some of the tracks - looks like it drops away into the abyss.  Car number stickers given out (we only have 10 tens this weekend, instead of the 30 we had at the February weekend but it is Fathers Day weekend so might have something to do with it), one last toilet stop then join the line up of cars out on the road.

We've mounted the GoPro camera on the roof of the cab on video, so see how we go with that.  About 9.15am and we're off on our days adventure!

We are off

Some of our convoy ahead of us

Razzle

Razzle & Tommy

Like I said the tracks were nothing hard, pretty & a bit dusty, well we blamed Razzle for the dust since he was in front of us!

Pretty

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By 10.15am we arrived at the Somerset Lookout and what a spectacular view it was out over Somerset Dam.

Somerset Lookout

Spectacular View

Back on the road around 10.30am to follow some more tracks, which will lead us to our lunch destination at "The Gantry".

A bit of mud for anyone who wants it

Lunch stop at "The Gantry"

One of the pretty creeks

Keep your eye on the track, it's a
looooong way down!

Onto the next track

Down we do

Our mate Razzle

 At some point along the track after lunch Colin in Car 6 (That be Dumpling Man), called on the radio to ask how cars 8,9,10 were going (we actually had been held up on the track by some young blokes who's mate got hung up on a bump), after saying we were all good there was another comment about time or something and Craig responded to Colin by saying "how it was cutting into his marinating time for his winning dish", there was a few cars who cracked up laughing with this banter going back and forth between the two of them.  Really it set the tone for the rest of the afternoon back at camp  -  haha.

And up we go

A few bumps

Time to head back to camp

Back at camp around 2pm and its time to start getting organised for the cook off.  Craig needs to marinate those chicken wings firstly, then he got the fire going as I needed to brown my chicken drumsticks before simmering my dish for a couple of hours (I'm cooking my preserved lemon, olive & chicken tagine with cous cous)

Browning the chicken drumsticks

A bit of onion action

Craig starting to cook his first batch
of chicken wings.

Boris rugged up the the cool night

7pm time for the judging!  Here's how it played out:  Craig didn't get a place but out of 3kg of chicken wings that were tipped & halved, he only had about 12 pieces left!!

Judging has begun

First place went to Colin
(Dumpling Man) and here is his dish

Razzle's 3rd place pizzas

1st place to Colin (Dumpling Man)

2nd place to Lyn (rice burning lady from
the Kenilworth weekend)  xxoo

3rd Place to Razzle

4th place to Me!!

Hillary made some yummy
chocolate brownies which we enjoyed
by all.

Here is our winner

The table of meals

Relaxing around the campfire afterwards

Again we had a great fun weekend, got to renew a few new friendship we made at the Kenilworth TJM weekend and also introduce a mate to these fun weekends TJM put on. Sunday morning TJM put on a cooked breakfast for Fathers Day for everyone to enjoy and unfortunately we all had to make our way home on Sunday.

Hold onto your hats though, we will be attending the next TJM weekend which is to be held in November and we are determined to knock "Dumpling Man" off his first place podium - so check back in between now and then, as we will be slotting in another of our weekend camps before November also.  (the GoPro video worked but as the tracks were fairly simple ones, the footage is nothing exciting, so I've decided not to share them).