Yoghurt Balls

Eleni Foods yoghurt balls are nice and spicy. Here's a link to David's column in the Courier Mail newspaper. We had a photo shoot in our kitchen and my photo that I took with my mobile phone is almost as good as the ones taken by Mark with his amazing professional gear.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26104026-5013516,00.html

Swimming Kangaroo

Here's a zoom in of my swimming kangaroo photo.

Yamba Days

I'm enjoying using my new heavy duty enameled metal citrus juicer. I bought it at Home of the Heart at Bangalow. This morning I had orange, lemon, and mandarin juice in our beach unit at Yamba. Yum

This is the front of our old fifties unit block in Ocean St. We love our little studio apartment. It's called 'Seascape'. We worry that it's not long for this world with all the development we see.

What a great way to spend one of our days on holidays in Yamba - a kayaking trip with Bob. Today he took us around some beautiful parts of the Esk River near Iluka. The day was beautiful after a few days of bad weather. Bob's website is http://www.yambakayak.com.au/

Bob packed the best picnic lunch for hungry kayakers. A very classy salad roll with the nicest smoked trout, Bob's home grown rocket leaves, his wife's beautiful semi-dried tomatoes, and nice ham.

Bob and David enjoy a chat over lunch. Bob packs all the comforts and we had a nice break.

Homemade currant cake courtesy of Bob's wife. We even had a nice cup of tea and coffee to go with it.

There is a giant grey kangaroo that has jumped into the water with a huge splash to swim over to greener grass on one of the other islands in the Esk River near Iluka. He's right in the middle of the photo, I think. I'll try to zoom in later.

Here he is after his swim. We couldn't believe how big he was, but Bob our kayak guide around the river tells us it is quite common to see them swimming in the rivers and he has seen them in the surf as well. This guy was a great swimmer! We think he may have been two metres tall and could weigh 130 kilos. Bob tells us that one nearly jumped on top of his kayak one day.

This is lovely Ros from Yamba Wellbeing Centre who gave me an amazing massage yesterday. This was supposed to be my treat after a day's kayaking, but we had to pospone our trip because of terrible windy weather. The massage ended up being a prior to kayaking treat! Website: http://www.yambawellbeingcentre.com.au/

We met Bronwyn Mark from Pot Belly Pies in Yamba yesterday. It was getting near lunchtime and we could smell delicious aromas coming from her shop. I had a shepherd's pie and David had a Balmoral Beef which contained scotch whisky and cream. They were yum!

You can't go past Bronwyn's shop. I'm trying to put a link in this post. Hope it works.

http://potbellypiesyamba.blogspot.com/

Look at the colourful packed shelves in Causley Fresh Deli in Yamba St. This placed has all the best goodies from Black Pearl Epicure and Fino Foods in Brisbane. Our friend, Michael Dalton, of Fino Foods recommends this shop to anyone who might be visiting Yamba.

Next door to Seascape you can see the renovation of On the Rocks in progress. We used to stay here when it was divided into units, but the local gossip is that a Sydney millionaire bought it for 7 million and is doing it up as one whole private residence. The decks have been extended and the workmen sure have a nice view to admire while they work.

We found this beautiful jam at the Friendly Grocer in Yamba St. It is made by P. Le Couteur at Gulmarrad which is on the way to Brooms Head. Phone 02 6645 1766.

Here's Gordon Merchant's mansion at Angourie. It's nice to see it finished. Gordon is the head of the Billabong company.

This is Mike from Causley Fresh Deli in Yamba. He's from Switzerlandbut he loves living in Yamba.

The highlight of our day so far was seeing lovely Fiona from my work in Brisbane. She teaches Year 4 next to me at school and she's back in Yamba visiting her family. Fiona grew up here and loves to come back to the beach. We went to Caper Berry.

David had a great afternoon yesterday when he went to the Rugby League grand final in McLean. The Lower Clarence Magpies beat Northern United from Lismore by one point so it was a nail biting finish. He met this guy John Mathieson who has made a tree change to McLean from Melbourne. He helps people who are putting on a play.

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Beachwood Cafe at Yamba is our favourite coffee and breakfast place. We've had excellent lunches there too. Carlos knows all the locals and most of the regular visitors too. It's a treat to listen to his friendly chats to everyone who comes by.

Beachwood Cafe at Yamba is known far and wide for Sevtap's amazing cooking. She has Turkish and Dutch connections and her flavours are wonderful. We've read write-ups in the Sydney papers about their amazing cafe.











For breakfast, David had the Turkish eggs which are served with a beautiful tomato sauce.














Here's David outside Beachwood Cafe in Yamba admiring their veggie and herb garden. This is the healthiest looking cherry tomato plant.

Here's a morning photo of Convent Beach looking towards Angourie taken from our front deck.

On the drive to Yamba, we always stop at Bangalow. Their main street has such a great country town feel to it although now it's packed with tourists because it's the start of the school holidays.

Utopia Cafe at Bangalow is our favourite stopover on the drive to Yamba. I had the pumpkin scone for morning tea. It was served with really nice jam and whipped cream. The coffee is always great.

I love the huge windows looking out onto the big Moreton Bay Fig trees at the back of the property. We also saw so many beautiful bauhinias flowering around Bangalow. They're a couple of weeks later down here than they are at home in Brisbane.

Banana Cake

Emmaline's Country Kitchen: treattrackers had a lovely Fossicking afternoon with Mark a photographer from the Courier Mail. Here's a beautiful Banana Passionfruit Cake from the Adelaide Hills - sales@mhagencies.com.au was so yummy and I got out my best cups!

Pastry Pantry

Treattrackers are trying some new gluten free frozen pastry sheets. They're nice ones made with the flour from lentils, rice and amaranth(don't know what that is). The blurb on the box tells us that Rick Grant is a Gluten Free pioneer because many years ago his wife became intolerant to wheat and gluten. Not only that, he's a master pastry chef. His company's called The Pastry Pantry.

The Courier Mail is sending over a photographer this afternoon to shoot some Fossicking photos but I had to take a photo of my beautiful quiche when it came out of the oven and was still puffed up. The gluten free pastry worked really well for this treat.

http://www.thepastrypantry.com/

Lamb Dinner

We had the lamb racks from Farmer Dave's that we bought yesterday morning at West End markets. The treattracking team enjoyed them. Treattracker Amy is getting tired of having her photo taken for just about everything but I say it makes the blog more interesting.

Happy Father

David is very proud of two of his Fathers' Day presents - Danielle gave him a frozen pizza base that she gets from her local baker and Amy bought an amazing knife and board from King of Knives. website

http://www.treattrackers.com/

Garden and Tempo

Treattrackers met a lovely waitress at Tempo cafe at West End. Her name's Meg and she is so chirpy and friendly. Meg has a delightful Cockney accent. Of course, Mum had to ask her where she was from.

We liked our Tempo breakfast.

The treattracker team has another treat at Tempo cafe at West End. Breakfast with the girls. Mum treattracker liked her corn and zucchini fritters. Nice coffee too.

We visited our favourite plant seller, Alan Spears, at the Manly markets for a Sunday morning treat. Alan gives advice and doesn't charge for it.

David's happy with his purchases and I wanted the lavender to put near my clothes line out the back.

Here's a picture of how our herbs have done. This is the sage, coriander, and chives.

This is the rocket and the dill. We've had so many salads made with the rocket.

Some of the veggies are growing in containers on top of our hopelessly clay soil on top of our rocky hill. Two of them are earth boxes all the way from Scranton, Pennsylvania. Just as good are the styrofoam fruit boxes from our fruiterer. Look at the cherry tomatoes at the back and the silverbeet exploding. Our treat tonight is 'spinach' triangles made with the silverbeet.

David's having a go in the improved soil in this bed with these peas. May have some sheep manure from under his brother Andrew's shearing shed at Thane, near Warwick. We recently brought back a boot full wrapped in garbage bags. There's nothing like sheep poo!

Twestival

Treattrackers' lovely daughter Amy (with the lace skirt) and her music group The Gentlemen are on the Twestival website. Here's a link

http://brisbane.twestival.com/page/2/

West End Markets

West End markets has Leavain sourdough bread and we always get a few loaves.

West End Markets and we visited Farmer Dave's Meat stall. We liked his assistant's hat and her enthusiasm for his great lamb racks. They're from Dauper sheep bred at Goodiwindi specially for their meat and not their wool. We do ours in our hot smoker but they're also beautiful roasted in the oven.

Next stop at the West End Markets is the strawberry lady. We always eat our way through two of her really large punnets.

Here's the happy potato man. You would not think there were so many varieties of potatoes. His stall is so popular and the giant cloves of garlic are sure worth what we pay for them.

We love these Royal Blue potatoes (but really they're purple). They are so good done any way, but are especially good roasted.

Here are the chook people. You can't miss their hats and Mr Chook's clever spruiking about his eggs. They're wonderful free range organic eggs that taste delicious done any way you like.

Murwillimbah bananas are also a must buy.

He's a happy salesman. The lady finger bananas are a treat.

West End Markets even has buskers. Here's a Country and Western singer who has his own material. He sounds good.

Why not try some of these big mandarins. I like the name and the taste and the price.

At West End Markets we saw a healthy Dad buying fruit and veggies for his family.