Our son turned 40 on the 8th June and his birthday party was on the weekend. 40 really is a milestone birthday with it being the halfway mark. For my 40th birthday I took three of my girlfriends to Karumba for a girly weekend. It was a lot of fun and it was a perfect birthday for me as I'm not big on parties and being the centre of attention. My son, however did not inherit that trait from me. He is like his father and doesn't mind a big splash up party.....
We arrived at our sons place at Gundiah on Thursday and were quickly put to work with party preparations. We had, of course, offered to help with whatever we could. My daughter in law is a dab hand in the kitchen and can cater very easily for a crowd. They were expecting 70 guests and that is a large amount of people to cater for so they decided on a spit roasted whole lamb and rotisserie chooks with lots of vegetables to be cooked in camp ovens. Suzie and I chopped all the vegetables on Friday morning. Baby potatoes were scrubbed, carrots were julienned, zucchini was sliced along with beans. Broccoli and Cauliflower was tossed in a huge amount of cheesy white sauce that took around five litres of milk! Three large pumpkins were de-seeded and stuffed with lots of garlic and then wrapped in foil to be placed on the fire coals. All this chopping took us a couple of hours. Once we had finished and the vegetables were placed into the camp ovens and taken to the coldroom, it was time to make our way down to the camp ground on the banks of the Mary River where the party was to be held.
It is a beautiful spot with plenty of room for all the caravans, campers and tents to set up their respective camp. The ground is grassed and flat and Marco and Suzie had slashed and mowed the whole area. Quite a few of the guests arrived on Friday and it was decided that we all head to the Gundy Pub for dinner that night so that nobody needed to cook. It was a good choice and the meals that the publican served up were bloody delicious! I wish I had taken a photo of Philips Chicken Parmy. It was humungeous. Most of us oldies left the pub quite early but the young ones stayed till quite late. A decision I think they regretted the next day!
The day of the party Marco got the fire going early because he needed the coals to be just the right temperature for the spit roasted lamb and camp ovens. He really deserved a medal for the effort he put into the cooking. For hours he never stopped moving coals around. He was offered plenty of help but I think he enjoyed doing it himself.
The guests started arriving around 3pm for a 6pm dinner. They arrived in dribs and drabs with their chairs in one hand and esky in the other. It was very cold so everyone made sure they were wearing plenty of warm clothes. Philip stole a friends hat/beanie/thingy.....looks cute doesn't he 😩😩
We had an absolute ball at the party. There were so many of our Julia Creek ex-pat friends at the party and we spent a great deal of time talking old times. I looked around at the diverse crowd. The age group was from 8 to 80 and came from so many different areas but everyone just mingled. I think that says a lot about the circle of friends that Marc has in his life. Nothing pretentious or shy about this lot!
The meal that Marco and Suzie presented to their guests was delicious with a capital 'D" and it was the perfect amount of food. There were a few vegetables leftover and Suzie and I commented that we would rather be accused of over catering than under catering 😂. For dessert we had cupcakes. Wow. They were the best. I have never seen so many different varieties. There was Turkish delight, Lemon Meringue, Black Forest and Salted Caramel to name just a few. They certainly went down a treat especially with both big and little kids!
We only camped for two nights. We had very cold nights but beautiful day time temperatures. We were going to stay the third night but I was quietly pleased when it was decided that the few of us that were still there on Sunday should move our camps up to the house (and power!!!).
It was much warmer on Sunday night and I wasn't surprised when we woke to a rainy day. We are now in Mount Larcom at one of the local caravan parks where it is raining steadily and I love the sound of rain on the roof. This will probably be my last holiday post as we plan on being home on Friday. We have quite a few kilometres in front of us so it will be early morning starts and early bedtimes for us.
Take care friends xx
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