Easter baking and Easter hiking

We went to the Grampians this weekend with a few of our adventurous friends. The trip was fuelled largely by this amazingly sickly sweet but delicious Easter egg caramel slice (a.k.a. diabetes-in-a-block) that I had baked, and some discount Wispa bars that we picked up a big armful of in Coles. In the recipe, I only used half the quantity for sweetened condensed milk, and really, it was enough! The recipe says that it makes 15, but for us it made about 24... really sickly. Really easy to make, would highly recommend this recipe for any people with a sweet tooth out there.

We camped at Mt Stapylton campground and hiked along the campground track up to Mt Stapylton. Gib and I have hiked this one before, but I never made it to the peak. I was keen to do this walk as payback to Jocelyn taking us up the near vertical climb up Sugarloaf Peak at Cathedral Ranges a few weeks back. However, it turns out that my fear of heights has improved since the first time I did Mt Stapylton, so I managed to make it to the top this time and it wasn't nearly as bad as Sugarloaf! There were a few differences this time though: it was warmer and less windy so it felt less exposed, I had better shoes, and made the smart decision to leave my pack on one of the rock shelves below. The same ledge before the final peak that made me terrified the first time is still terrifying, but was manageable with the guidance of our good friends.

The following day we headed to the Southern Grampians to climb Mt Abrupt and do some off-the-track GeoCaching. We don't have any photos as yet because the memory card in the camera was full so our friends took the photos, but here is a photo of pretty much exactly what we saw. I think it offers one of the best views of the Grampians I have seen. That said, the view from the spot where our geocache was was equally spectacular, looking up towards the beautiful Mt Abrupt summit.

Image from here

For Easter Sunday (we arrived home from camping Saturday night, Jocelyn had to work - poo!) I baked some Koulourakia, Greek Easter biscuits. The recipe was great, easy to follow, and the result is delicious. My Greek work colleague tells me they store very well, however I don't think they're going to last very long around here.

Image from here

Hope you all had a happy Easter!

It's all about the little stuff

Here are photos of some neat little bugs I found on our adventures over the past few months. I have no idea what most of them are, but I thought they cool.

We found this little guy in Sydney, wandering along a path at the Royal Botanic Gardens.

A native wasp? on a hike in Macedon

This little critter at Phillip Island. I thought he looked kind of cute with his head tipped upside down.

Some unknown but groovy looking bug at Cathedral Ranges

And here's the same bug now waving his butt at us. I'm not sure what that means... perhaps he doesn't like us?

An unusual find: We spotted this hawk moth at Cathedral Ranges, just sunning itself on a rock

The hawk moth, from all angles

This was a cockroach we found on the beach on the east coast of Tasmania. It did not look real at all, like it was a boy's toy made entirely out of metal, complete with little "rivets" down the side. Absolutely amazing find. We've never been able to ID it.

Enjoy! Hope you have a great weekend!

Cathedral Ranges: Just a hike over a few boulders

We took a day trip out to Cathedral Ranges on Sunday, with my friend Jocelyn. It's about 100 km north east of Melbourne, between Taggerty and Buxton, near Marysville. It's been just over a year since the Black Saturday bushfires, so it was a fascinating trip out to the area. Everything is a contrast of charred black with new bright green growth.

Please click on the photos to enlarge them!

Hues of green and black

I spoke to Jocelyn on Friday night and let her know we were thinking of heading out to do some hiking at Cathedral Ranges, and she said she knew of this great walk out that way, she'd been there only a few weeks ago. Her words were: "Oh, the track isn't too bad, but you need to climb over a few boulders along the way". By "climbing over a few boulders" she actually meant "do a near-vertical ascent up the entire rockface right the way to the top". Not that we minded at all, it was heaps of fun... just not quite what she'd described!

We started at Sugarload Saddle, took the Wells Cave track to Sugarloaf Peak, then along the Razorback to The Farmyard, with a detour to the South Jawbone Peak, to the Jawbone carpark and around back to the Sugarloaf Saddle carpark via the road (refer to this map). It took the three of us almost exactly 6 hours to complete, with breaks and time to take photos. Much of the track has had to be re-marked recently, as many of the rocks have shattered due to the fire and there is a lot of debris along the track. Apparently (I've only just read this then!) the track is for experienced hikers only... and that was before the fires.

The ascent to Wells Caves is very steep from the outset, and in some parts you need to throw your pack up first and then pull yourself up.

Near vertical

"Just climbing over a few boulders" says Jocelyn

The cave itself is steep but great fun. However I wouldn't recommend this track if you are overweight or claustrophobic. Wells Cave is quite narrow, fine for little runts like me, but Gib found it to be a bit squeezy (he's not overweight, but tall and broad). Again, you can't do this with your pack on, there isn't the room.

Wills Cave: a bit squeezy

The view after the cave is fantastic and well worth it.

The next section up to Sugarloaf Peak is a bit hairy in some spots, but there are lots of solid hand holds and solid foot places. It's more of a mind thing than anything.

View from Sugarloaf Peak along the Razorback

We made our way from Sugarloaf Peak along the Razorback, where we stopped part way for lunch. The Razorback is a fairly comfortable walk for most of the way. There is a made walking track in some parts, and only a small amount of awkward climbing with narrow ledges, and some parts of the flatter track are quite sandy and with a lot of loose rubble. Most of it is fine though. There are some great views along the way.

While making our way to The Farmyard (so named because there are lyrebirds that live nearby that make farmyard noises! We didn't spot any though) we stumbled across the most amazing patch of cherry tomatoes. Maybe someone dropped a tomato there one day and now there is this huge patch? The smell of it was absolutely divine, and we rummaged through and picked all the ripe ones. They were super sweet. I would love to go back there in a week or so I can gorge myself silly on all the hundreds of now-green tomatoes.

Like kids in a candy store: The enormous patch of tomatoes

The walk up from The Farmyard to South Jawbone Peak is relatively easy and offers lovely views. I didn't sit out on the edge like the other dudes I was with, and thankfully they didn't tell me what a long drop it was below until after we'd walked down the hill a bit.

The view from South Jawbone Peak

We took the track from South Jawbone Creek back to the Jawbone carpark, which is a pleasant descent via a creek and through cool ferny forest.

We then walked along the main driving track (uphill most of the way) back to the car.

Aftermath of Black Saturday, just over 12 months ago

Uphill home

The Engagement Party

Our engagement party: a beautiful day, shared with beautiful people, eating delicious food and vegging out. I can't think of a better way to celebrate!

It has been almost a month since Gib and I celebrated our engagement with family and friends. It was the perfect day: Fine, sunny, 26 degrees. We were out in one of our favourite parks, and everyone was either vegging out in the shade or playing cricket or frisbee or whatever took their fancy. So often at birthdays/engagements/weddings the kids get bored (I do too!) so I delighted that the weather was nice and everyone could do whatever they felt like.

However, leading up to the party, I decided I wanted to wear a pretty dress. At the end of a long day of no-luck-shopping for a dress and feeling kind of desperate, I popped into Lincraft and actually found - quite to my surprise - a fabric that I liked (for a number of years now I have hated Lincraft's range of fabrics, but they are my closest fabric shop, so I was truly impressed!). And then there was a sale on patterns. And then I found a pattern that I liked and it had my favourite word: EASY. It was New Look pattern #6557, and I made D, the yellow one. It was indeed easy to follow, and I even learned how easy it was to insert an invisible zip. I love how it tells you how to adjust the pattern to fit your measurements. I would happily make this dress again. Including the pattern, it came to a total of $50 exactly to make.

Here is an action shot of me in the Engagement Dress, while playing tug of war (Beth vs. Gib). Except the rope broke. I think there will have to be a rematch at the wedding...

My absolutely wonderful cousin, Louise, did an AMAZING job at catering all of the sweets, which you can see wrapped in clingwrap next to the cake, below. Every year she makes the most spectacular Christmas treat hampers, so I asked her if she could do the catering for our party. She went over and above the call of duty on this one, and made biscotti, mini cheese cakes, shortbreads, lady's fingers, mars bar slice, meringues, lemon tarts (ohmygoshamazing), lemon slice...!!

I made our engagement cake. I am so sick to death of chocolate cake, everyone has chocolate cake (apologies to any chocolate cake lovers out there), so I decided to make a carrot cake. You can see Gib in the background threatening to cut the cake with his bare hands.

Recipe for Carrot Cake

And before I forget, here is the recipe I use for Carrot Cake. Taken from my absolute favourite cake book: Family Circle's 'Making Beautiful Cakes' (p. 12). This recipe is brilliant, so smooth, and it smells and tastes fantastic.

150 g self raising flour
150 g plain flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
200 ml vegetable oil
230 g brown sugar
4 eggs
125 ml golden syrup
500 g grated carrot
60 g chopped walnuts

- Preheat oven to 160C fan forced.
- Line the base and sides of a 10" tin with baking paper, including 2" collar around the top (although I used a star shaped baking tin!)
- Sift together the flours, spices, and bicarbonate of soda in a large bowl. Form a well in the centre.
- Whisk together the oil, sugar, eggs and syrup. Gradually pour into the well, stirring into the dry ingredients until smooth.
- Stir in the carrot and nuts. Spoon into the tins until 2/3 to 3/4 full, giving preference to the cake to be used on the day.
- Bake for 1 1/4 hours. Allow to cool completely before turning out onto a wire rack.
- Wrap in a layer of cling wrap, baking paper and foil and place in the freezer.

A photo of my dad, ever the practical joker, making his speech

And finally, a picture of me, my handsome Gib and Gib's Grandma

Unfortunately, my grandmother (dad's mum) was unable to make it to the party. As we were packing up the party, my aunt came and told me that Nan had just been transferred to the Austin. She passed away the next day, but we were fortunate enough to spend the evening with her, and the next morning as well. Dad stayed with her overnight. She was 89 and her body had finally worn out; thankfully she wasn't sick for long.

Eye spy... something that makes me happy

Exercise. It doesn't matter what: Karate, jogging, weights, skipping... but if I don't get my daily dose, things get nasty. I get surly and I don't really like being like that. In fact, just the other day Gib said to me, in a very serious and concerned tone "Beth, you're sounding quite negative today. I think you need to go to the gym". But with a daily work out, I feel happy, positive and often like a super hero. I feel totally invincible.

Easily pleased: exercise - anything, anywhere, anytime - makes me happy!
These are a slightly cleaner version of my shoes. I love orange (my orange runners make me happy too!)

Thank you Iris + Lily: I love happy themes! And Cindy, our wonderful host of Eye Spy!

Tasmania Part 2: Animals, bugs and plants

I'm not so sure if this is the most sensible way to present my holiday photos to you, but I'm rolling with it anyway. After Launceston, we picked up my parents and spent 5 days in the south of the state and took a look around Hobart, Port Arthur, Ida Bay, South-West National Park and Bruny Island.

Edit: for some reason blogger photo uploader/flickr is doing something dodgy with my photos so they're a little off-centre, and I can't work out why. You can view the originals here.

In this post I'll show a few of the smaller-scale things (as in, shrub size or smaller) we saw and save the big stuff for my next post. That is a selection of interesting animals, bugs and plants we saw. I don't have any idea about what species any of these things are - except perhaps the echidna - but if you know and want to tell me, please do! We just thought they looked cool. I've mentioned that I love bugs, and we spotted many of those while we were away.


Bumble bees; Bagdad. These things a freaking huge!


Pretty pink flowers; Devil's Kitchen


Echidna; Port Arthur


Cave cricket; Hastings Caves


Fungi; Southwest National Park


Lichen; Creepy Crawly walk (highly recommend!), Southwest National Park


Amazing moss covered tree; Creepy Crawly walk, Southwest National Park

Pretty red flower; Southwest National park



Banksias etc; Bruny Island Lighthouse


One of the numerous beetles of this variety we saw crawling all over Bruny Island Lighthouse



A pea that I know as "egg and bacon"; Fluted Cape walk, Bruny Island


Orchid; Fluted Cape walk, Bruny Island


A purple/blue flower we saw everywhere; Fluted Cape walk, Bruny Island


White wallaby (long way back, a bit of a dodgy shot); Fluted Cape walk, Bruny Island


Caterpillar pretending to be a stem; Old Mill trail, Bruny Island

Recipe reviews, chasing lyrebirds and more octopus cakes

I've come down with the flu. I spent the day reading and sleeping (mostly sleeping) and now it's 2am and I'm wide awake. Needless to say I'm now regretting not getting my flu vaccination this year - I'd forgotten how horrid it is! So I thought I'd share some adventures I've had in the kitchen the past week.

Edit: Oops in a haze of flu, I forgot to add the bit about lyrebirds... see below!

Recipe review #1: Beer baked beans

I finally gave the Stove-top sweet and spicy beer baked beans a go (as mentioned in a previous post). After making the recipe exactly as it said, I found it was far too sweet. I ended up adding 500 g chopped tomatoes to the pot as well to make it less sweet. I'd probably halve the amount of sugar and add a 400 g tin of tomatoes in future. I could not find navy beans, but great northern beans were the best substitution (they're virtually the same size and shape anyway). And I decided on Coopers, a nice strong beer taste. I've been taking it to work and getting some envious looks in the lunch room.

Recipe review #2: Maggie and Simon's mushroom and leek calzone

Calzone are delicious. Often I'll make up a batch of 6 for Gib and I to take to work during the week, or for a quick, filling meal after training. When I saw this recipe featured on the Cook and the Chef last week, I had to give it a go. Mushroom and leek a favourite food combination of mine, and I was intrigued to see how the non-pizza bread dough turned out. I made the dough in the food processor, and the dough was quicker and less messy to make than pizza dough is (which sped up the calzone making process substantially). I substituted the fontina for gouda. Oh boy, it was delicious. I'll definitely be making this one again.

Sarah's octopus cake
Friday night I helped my friend Sarah bake a blue ring octopus cake for her friend who she goes scuba diving with every weekend. Sarah doesn't bake very often and we were a little pressed for time having to do it all in the one evening (usually I make my cakes in advance) so we decided to go with the classic packet chocolate cake and ice with butter cream icing. We discovered that Betty Crocker's chocolate cakes only make 8 cups, and the octopus cake is a 10 cup tin. The cake mix just filled the legs but not the base of the tin. It still worked out fine. The blue rings are made from candy necklaces and the eyes and beak (Sarah, like me, clearly also has an appreciation for anatomical correctness, even in cakes) are made from mini licorice all sorts. Congratulations to Sarah for her first ever character cake!

Chasing lyrebirds

I took the day off last Thursday to hang out with Gib to coordinate with his work hours, and I worked Saturday. We took a picnic lunch and headed for the Dandenongs. From Grant's picnic ground in Kalista we took the eastern loop (about 7km) and on the way spotted four lyrebirds! The first was a female just scurrying across the path and scratching about. We heard lyrebirds the whole way around though. We started picking their calls by thinking "Gee, that kookaburra sounds a little close to the ground" and then "Hmm.. that bell bird sounds a little flat, don't you think?". About half way around the track we spotted two males hanging out together (brothers?), practicing and strutting their stuff. Then another male came along and started up this massive repertoire, much more impressive (better mimicry). The three of them proceeded to have a bit of a sing off until the two boys scurried away. This is a poor quality video I took with my camera, but I took it for the sound. You can hear the more impressive male and see the other two scratching, strutting about and then finally scurrying away. The only bird you can hear on the video is the lyrebird, but my favourite is when he does the kookaburra. Exciting stuff. Lyrebirds can be very hard to spot so we were extremely fortunate to see not one but four of them!

A weekend adventure to The Grampians

Friday morning Gib and I jumped into the car and headed off, filled up the petrol tank and ended up... in The Grampians National Park. It's about 3.5 hours drive from Melbourne - or closer to 4 hours if you forget to take the ring road and end up in Werribee instead (both driver and navigator got distracted by an interesting discussion on Triple J). It's a favourite destination for both Gib and I, although we've never holidayed there together before. We stayed in the National Park camp grounds because they're dirt cheap - you get drop toilets and no showers, but we were only intending to stay overnight anyway... but it ended up being two nights. We slept in the back of the station wagon: a convenient, portable "tent". Amazingly, the weather was perfectly cold and sunny the whole time we were there. After all the hiking we did, we were quick to leap into the shower when we got home.

The view out the back of our "tent". There were plenty of kangaroos in the vegetation.

We were a little unprepared: We had gin, tonic water and even limes, but no cups. Cups would have also been useful for the tinned soup we brought. A few extra bottles of water wouldn't have gone astray either, but we managed to make some good camping improvisations by getting water from waterfalls and boiling it for ages. We made pancakes out of tonic water. Perhaps an extra pair of warm pants wouldn't have gone astray either as it was extraordinarily cold at night.

Day one: McKenzie Falls and Briggs Bluff

We stayed at Smith's Mill camp ground, which is stones throw to the McKenzie falls. We sat in the car park having the classic camping breakfast: bite the middle out of a piece of bread and crack an egg into the middle and fry it up til it's all golden on the outside and gooey on the inside, but we had a hard time fending off a family of 12 carrawongs. We were down at the falls nice and early, about 8am, but still by 8:30 there was a crowd of tourists coming down. The McKenzie falls are far more impressive in winter than summer.

Breakfast at McKenzie falls

Gib at McKenzie falls

The Briggs Bluff walk was fantastic. It was about 4 hours return (estimated 3.5, but we took a wrong turn). While the view from the top wasn't nearly as breathtaking as other climbs, the walk itself was stunning. The terrain was so varied on the way to the top, starting with Beehive Falls, through forest, large boulders and sandstone, and other parts were open, rocky and swampy.

We were astounded at the number of carnivorous plants we found. Until a few months ago we hardly knew anything about carnivorous plants. Then after going to just a couple of the Victorian Carnivorous Plant Society meetings for advice on our plants, we learned that there were more than just Venus fly traps and your standard pitcher plants. Just by sitting in on meeting we absorbed information about the local, native species, and while we were in the Grampians we were able to spot them everywhere. It's amazing what's right under your nose without even knowing. I'm sure I've seen these plants a thousand times and thought they were just another moss or something.

Various carnivorous plants on the way to the top of Brigg's bluff

On the way to the Grampians we had joked about whether we'd see any Asterolasia phebalioides, the endangered plant that I picked up and have struggled to keep. l specimens, about a metre tall, with light green fluffy leaves, looking much happier than mine. I have wanted to see them growing so I can get a better idea on how to better manage my one at home. They're only found in a few pockets around Australia, and only in a handful of places in the Grampians. On the way up to the bluff we saw other Asterolasia but not the A phebalioides, but then to my absolute astonishment I found one on the way back. Beautiful, about a metre tall with thick light green leaves, looking much healthier than my one. Then we started spotting them all over the place in an area about 2/3 of the way to the top of the bluff. Coincidentally we'd found the best spot for them. Apparently the area surrounding Beehive Falls is home to the largest population.

A healthier specimin of Asterolasia phebalioides

Day two: Mount Stapylton

My favourite walk in the Grampians, up until now, has been Mount Hollow. I think that has now been surpassed by the walk up Mt Stapylton. The entire way along the walk is totally amazing: there are beautiful, sheer rock faces and stunning views the whole way. It's easy to navigate and the first part is a flat surface but quite steep, and then it sweeps down to an easy forest track. You walk past the Taipan Walls which are spectacular orange cliffs, through more shrubbery and then climb up some rocks to the first ledge. I was thinking at this point that it wasn't so bad, what are all of the reviews talking about when they say that people never make it to the top? It's at this is the point in the track where the yellow markers end and the red markers begin.

The red section of the track isn't so much physically challenging (it's definitely tougher but there are plenty of knobbly rocky hand holds) but it's a test of your mind. We took the red arrow to the left, which leads you across a couple of very precarious ledges. The first was about a foot wide and then you have to climb up through a narrow hole onto another rather precarious ledge which is a bit less than a foot wide and much more exposed. My toes are going numb just writing about it now. There's a nice flat rock face angling back that you can cling to for your life and eventually you reach a rocky outcrop with some rock pools. I don't particularly like heights, but this was the first time I've felt physically ill from heights. I think I could have coped better if there wasn't so much wind. I looked up and there was one short, final scramble to the top. It was steep and even more exposed. The hair raising experience on the previous ledges had totally done my head in and I just could not bring myself to do the last bit. I sat admiring the stunning view in a tight ball of petrified mess, wondering how on earth I'd make it down. Gib leaped like a mountain goat to the top, took videos and everything (bastard). He tells me that the ledges were much harder and that the last section is quite easy: just climb up through some nobbly rocks and you're there.

Will I do it again? Absolutely!

The track leading to Mt Stapylton peak. The orange cliffs are the Taipan walls, a popular place for rock climbing.

Me, freaking out, not far from the final ledge near the peak. The narrow path below me is about 2 meters wide at that point. The trees behind me are a couple of hundred meters below me (refer to picture above - you can see where the line of trees are below the shelf that I'm on).