CAMPSITE # 144 - Hells Gates. WE'RE BACK IN QLD!!!

We were to cross a state border for the very last time as we began our home stretch into Queensland and then gradually make our way back to Brisbane. I was expecting a quarantine building flooded with streamers and dozens of balloons with a giant "Welcome Home" banner for us to drive underneath. Our border crossing from NT to QLD couldn't have been any more of an anti-climax. All that separated NT from the land of the Sunshine State was... a cattle grid.

I particularly like Burke Shire's catch phrase...

Knowing that we were finally back in Queensland after nearly 10 months on the road left me with mixed emotions. I instantly felt that homely comfort knowing that we were that one step closer to Brisbane but then all I could think was how quickly it all came around and how it'll all be over sooner than we realise.

Tom, the forever optimist, wouldn't have an ounce of my negativity. While we may well be back in Queensland, we still had a hell of a lot to do & see. We just had to keep reminding ourselves to embrace everyday and squeeze as much into each 24 hours as possible. For poor Jim, this meant a few big driving days through areas that weren't on our list of things to do & see. We needed to get over to Cairns... fast! So then we could nip up the Cape and back before he was to fly out from Cairns at the end of August. 

Once we had arrived at our camp - Hells Gate, the boys were eager to get a camp oven fire happening. So, while Tom was busy showing Jim what to do, I set about bunging a few things into our ring-spun steel oven in hope that it would transform into something edible after a couple of hours on the fire.

How To Prepare & Manage a Camp Oven Fire

• Light a fire and spend about an hour getting it as hot as possible.
• Set aside an area close to the fire for your camp oven to sit
• Set the fire up so that you can easily shovel the embers out without killing the heat of the fire
• Use a few big chunks of wood to keep the heat of the fire and then a lot of little sticks that will breakdown quickly into embers.
• Shovel embers onto the bottom and top of the camp oven and update with new hot embers every 30 minutes.

The joys of cooking in a camp oven is that you can generally throw everything in altogether at the start and not have to touch it again. Inside the camp oven, I put - 

Chicken Drumsticks & Dumplings on the Camp Oven

• 4 Chicken drumsticks lightly seared
• 1 onion diced finely
• Pre-soaked soup mix i.e. lentils & chickpeas etc
• 1 cup of dehydrated peas
• 4 carrots thickly sliced
• 2 litres of chicken stock
• Handful of fresh herbs - we had some hot basil
• Sprinkle of Dried chilli flakes, Salt & Pepper
• Slurp of Soy Sauce & Worcestershire Sauce

The boys rotated the embers on the camp oven twice, which meant it had been on there for an hour. After an hour, we lifted the lid and I added some dumpling balls around the edge that were just made out of Self Raising Flour, Water, Baking Powder & Dried Basil. We then left the camp oven for another two ember rotations and it was ready to eat after a long & amazingly aromatic 2 hours...

The key is to find something to entertain yourselves during the 2 hour long wait for your meal. Tom and I figured this was a perfect opportunity to teach the 13 year old how to excel at a very important game that he will find extremely useful in years to come... Poker. We substituted poker chips for the only thing we had on hand... Kidney Beans & Chick Peas...

And the winner?!!! ... (Why else would I put this on the blog if I lost?!!!!)

James, takes after his big brother, having his morning shower.

Site : Hells Gate Roadhouse
Rating : 5 / 20
Facilities : Camp fires allowed. Some shade. No powered sites available. Camp kitchen. I never thought I could find one place that would make me so afraid to pee...