Southend Bush Tucker trail - Coastal connections

At this time of year Natural Resources South East hold the Coastal Connections programs for children in our local coastal towns.

For the last couple of years I have had intentions of taking the kids along, but life gets busy and I forget.

It seems you need to be quick to book in, because places fill up fast. I managed to get myself and the girls booked into the Bush Tucker Trail event in Southend. Isabel decided she didn't want to come(only because I was cleaning a holiday house in Rendelsham on the way), so Summer and I went along yesterday.

We ate icecream on the beach first and went to the "Geltwood" anchor lookout to kill some time before the tour. I can highly recommend the 'unicorn' Gaytime. YUM!

It was very interesting to learn which plants we can can enjoy getting a taste of along our coast. I was even surprised at ones I'd never noticed before. It was a biggish group and most of the time we were lagging behind a bit, so I didn't catch some of the proper names of the plants, and google wasn't much help, so I can't pass on all the names of things. They all tasted okay!

We tried wattle seeds, a bit nutty. The guide said if you roast them they are amazing, a cross between popcorn and roasted nuts. Any wattle seed is edible so I am going to find a tree and raid it of seeds.

I was a little disappointed that the tour guides didn't point out the Muntrie berries to the other people on the trail. I could see them and knew of them. The guides were not from our area, and it seemed silly to me that they wouldn't point out an edible berry, native only to our area of the Limestone Coast.

The guides took us along the Rainbow Rocks walking trail, with fantastic views of the coast line I hadn't seen before, or for a long time. Going back again soon!

Native cherry. The seed is on the outside of the fruit! that little black bit. The fruit is the light pink berry.

This plant has loads of Vitamin C, and seafarers in the old days used it to avoid or cure scurvy. You need to cook it first though or it will make you crook. Bit like spinach apparently.

White berries, don't ask me the name. They don't taste too bad. 

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