Friday 8 May 2015

I may or may not have some photos

We have returned from Bundaberg and I discovered that I could point and snap and I ended up with some quite reasonable photos!  I have been tearing my hair out as I followed my usual procedure and loaded all the photos, then tried to write text around them.  I am not sure if it is just blogger or my Magic software, but nothing will work - grrrrr!  When I press the space button I was taken all over the place, even to another blog which I had read this morning.  I will try to post some photos at the end of the post and hope you can see what I have been talking about.
The ladies were treated even more luxuriously e
than ever and a diet was definitely the order of the day by the end of the week!  We had wonderful lunches and dinners of local delicacies as well as (unnecessary) morning and afternoon teas.  We visited a macadamia nut factory which was really interesting.
I grew up with a macadamia nut tree in our back yard which we knew as a Queensland nut tree, and the people who lived on the coast knew them as Bauple nuts.  They are really delicious, but have a very hard shiny brown shell covered by a tough outer husk.  We used a vice to crack them, but others used a hammer and a hole in concrete!  I hope I can publish the photo of a large container of the nuts ready for exporting to china.  There someone runs a sawcut round the shell, after which the nuts are steamed and sealed in a bag which contains a small key, ready for retailing.  The customer twists the key in the sawcut to access the kernel inside - ingenious!
We also visited a seaside resort Bargarra which is now a very trendy place, full of lovely coffee shops and wonderful gift shops.  When we sat down for coffee we found a selection of small gifts in front of each or us, including a photo taken the day before of the group, attached to a little easel.  Our hosts thought of everything!
We had  a two hour cruise in wonderful weather on the Bundy Belle, sitting in the sun being wined and dined in absolute luxury without even having to move out of our seats - it was all brought to us.  There is a lot of history along the river and the Captain made it very entertaining.
The best was left to last - a cooking demo come workshop in which we all participated, then ate some of our results for lunch.  Wayne had us all chopping and slicing and peeling green prawns or stirring pots on the cooktops he had .  We made a beetroot risotto topped with scallops and prawns, figgy linme chicken, sweet potato rosti, beans with garlic and feta cheese, and a very rich dessert of pastry shells with caramel topped by a chocolate cream!
The gods certainly smiled on Bundaberg for the conference.  It finished on Thursday and the heavens opened on Friday.   There was really terrible weather from the south of the city to the north coast of New South Wales, with five people dying in raging flood waters.
We drove north in lovely sunshine!







Sorry about the shadow on the photo - not testing my luck any further! 

1 comment:

  1. What a wonderful trip - the food sounds amazing, and the locations are beautiful and so interesting. Glad the weather was kind to you and you missed out on those dreadful floods. Looking forward to more great pics and I hope your computer plays nicely for you in future!

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