Muntrie picking at Canunda

It's that time of year when we go out into the wilderness, well the Canunda National Park to get our annual feed of muntrie berries.

We headed out after searching for a few geocaches in Millicent(Izzy's favourite thing to do), and one at the Mayurra Wagyu tasting rooms gate, which is on the way.

Muntries are a native berry to our region, formally called Kunzea Pomifera. They would have to be my favourite native flower. They flower in Spring and the  sweet apple like berries are ready to pick now.

I've been bringing the girls out here to pick muntries since they were little. Izzy's a bit over it, but Summer still squats by a patch and eats her little heart out.

They're a bit dusty straight from the patch due to the white metal road, which was awfully corrugated after a lot of use over summer. This road has been well used by four wheel drivers in that time, to get to the beach and tracks that take them all the way to Southend or Carpenter Rocks in the other direction.

After my encounter at Lake McIntyre, I was wary of snakes, as we've seen plenty of brown snakes through here in the past from the safety of our car.

I wasn't long before we had enough muntries to take home, the kids were ready anyway. I've been eating them with my porridge in the morning and have frozen some for putting in hot cross buns closer to Easter. It has become somewhat of a tradition. Summer is already asking when I am making muntrie berry buns.

I took the stony back tracks home, meandering through rocky farming land and wind farms. I pulled up right next to a windtower, turned the car off and we listened to the mesmerising whoosh of the blades, before finding our way to Burkhills Lane and home again.

Izzy's photo of me, picking berries

Dusty muntries

The small amount of washed muntries I didn't freeze and my porridge in the pan, ready for the stove. 

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And then they were seven and nine

My girls celebrated their birthdays this last weekend. Summer turned seven on Friday, and Isabel nine on Sunday. Geez the last few months have been a blur, how is it November already?

The family got together on Friday for an overdue pizza night at Mum's house. The pizzas that come from her brick oven are amazing. It was so good to catch up with everyone, together. Ate too much.

The girls had friends sleepover and a joint birthday party on Saturday. I had a cupcake decorating station this year and it was a hit. The girls both chose different icecream cakes from Woolies this year, which was less effort for me. No cake baking or late night decorating! #winning

Ate too much, and probably drank too much wine on Saturday night too, which resulted in a three hour nap on Sunday while Brett took the kids to the beach! #winning

Cockles season started on November first, so we drove out to Canunda and dug for cockles, we found heaps. It was a great way to work off some junk food. I didn't cook any up this year, they're all in the freezer to use as fishing bait. The kids had a ball digging for cockles, it's one of our favourite things to do at this time of year.

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Taking the scenic route

We set of yesterday to try and find cockles down at the Canunda National Park. Before we even left home it may have been obvious that we should have just stayed home.

While not much seemed like it was going right, it all ended well in the end. We didn't find cockles, there was a lot of weed on the beach and the sea was an awful brown colour because of it.

Summer was beside herself and crying while we drove along. Something has spooked her about driving on the beach. Brett didn't help matters when he mentioned he didn't want to get stuck because the car would end up in the ocean. Good move Brett....not! She wailed a little louder.

On the way out of the national park, we stopped at the big sandhill. It's no so big as it used to be when I was a kid. I wish the council had never excavated most of the sand away for use somewhere else. What were they thinking?! It's always been a legendary local landmark. Bloody crazy.

We took the scenic route home and come across a patch of belladonna lillies. Summer had stopped crying, but still wouldn't get out of the car. 

Belladonna lillies are also known as Easter lillies, as they flower at this time of year. There were also what looked like freesias and jonquils coming up too, so I will be back again to have a look.

It is common where an old homestead once was, to find remnants of the home garden still coming up every year. Not far from here, there is another site where we've dug up wild garlic. There's a fig tree there too, but I would never walk through the long grass to get to them in a fit. I don't fancy coming across a big arse brown snake!

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Sunsets for the soul

These photos are a few weeks old. I've only just had time to edit and post them.

We stayed at our holiday house in Pelican Point in the Limestone Coast of South Australia.

I got the chance for a walk down the beach on my own, with my camera.

These houses are situated on the beach front. Ours is on the back streets, away from the sea, which is kinda better, considering in the rough and high seas of winter, when the waves crash in their front yards!

This bay is called Bungalow Bay, so fitting....imagine being a local and seeing the changing scenes of this bay every week, we only get to see it every few weeks.  

It is a real treat when the sun puts on a show when we are there. 

In the morning we went exploring at Red Rock Bay, where there are more awesome sights.

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