Book Club Readers’ Retreat - or - the Op Shop Hop to the Lake Resort

The members of Caffeine and Chapters Book Club embrace the concept of the Short Break, and at least once a year we plan a weekend getaway. The search for suitable venues has taken us from Possum Park (loved it, but it’s a long drive) to an (alleged) eco retreat near Maleny (great markets but proprietors and facilities reminiscent of Wolf Creek) and then to Lake Maroon in the Scenic Rim. It has now become our destination of choice, with a cosy, unpretentious old Queenslander boasting plenty of bedrooms, multiple toilet/bathrooms, a well-equipped kitchen, lounge/dining area with generous seating – and best of all, a wraparound veranda with views over the lake and bush. Caff’n’Chaps heaven!

So, as always Robyn C. has done an amazing job of organising the details, sending out emails re dates, prices, and menus – warning us with no concession to democratic process and in bold capitals NOT TO BRING TOO MUCH FOOD. Geez, anyone would think we’re gluttons.

The convoy is sorted (who’s going in whose car?) and the RedRob direction is to meet for op-shopping in Canungra, so we converged on our first shop and successfully emerged with bargain clothing and cute knick-knacks. The op-shop etiquette is to be very generous pointing out suitable items to each other (that is just YOU, look, only $5!) BUT – if you spot something you really want for yourself, better grab it and hold it firmly to repel predators; it’s brutal.

Onward to Beaudesert for a brunch break at our favourite and ever-reliable café, where the coffee and food are DEE-licious. I discovered fresh hot homemade pumpkin and walnut patties that should be on every menu in the world. Well fortified, we decided on a quick look at the local op-shop – a quick look that lasted the best part of an hour and must have boosted the shop’s daily profit considerably.

The next stop was everyone’s favourite small town, Boonah, which always seems busy and buzzing with some form of community activity and which boasts three op shops! We supported all of them and then picked up a few last-minute supermarket items before heading out to Maroon.

Once out of Boonah, the drive is just a panorama of farm country, bush and the magnificent mountains with blue and grey colours showing the contours of rugged escarpments and deep valleys – this is the Scenic Rim, and it is balm to my soul. 

We finally rolled in to the weekend house to be greeted by the owner in typically informal friendly bush style – just go on in and get settled, we’ll sort the money later- and trooped in and out with our gear. Everyone migrated back to the beds we’d occupied last trip, and we just dumped stuff and gathered on the veranda. The realisation dawned on us that a 1 1/2 -hour drive had stretched to almost 6 hours via the Op-Shop Route!

One disappointment – they’ve taken out the open fireplace, so dreams of toasting marshmallows with supper were dashed. Workplace H&S strikes again, or did they just get sick of providing firewood?

Everyone slipped effortlessly into lazy mode, no food to prepare as The Plan specified ONLY soup and crusty bread for dinner. Time for catch-up gossip and news from our separate lives; and a discussion of the book read – the theme set by Maxine was ‘anything by Walt Whitman’ and it quickly emerged that nobody could make head nor tail of this literary icon’s poetry. Really? I mean, we’re all voracious readers, and his name crops up in almost any American book you pick up, he must be good! To my mind, a lot of his poetry reads like the random thoughts of counter-culture hippies of the ‘70’s, sitting around a fire and smoking strange substances. However, Rob rescued us by finding ‘Oh Captain, My Captain’; as she read it aloud, everyone could feel the moving lyrical power of Whitman. I resolved to dig further into his prose works in search of more gems – after all, who am I to judge an icon of his stature, especially in the hilarious mood of our discussion.

The ‘just soup and crusty bread’ dinner somehow expanded to include lamb wraps with extras and a dessert of pecan slice with cream - obviously we’ve cut back severely on food! Afterwards we gathered around the heaters and gossiped some more before drifting off to bed – second disappointment was the absence of a DVD player, so we couldn’t watch ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy’ as a cheat on our current read. 

First to stir next morning, I took my camera to try to capture some of the frosty, misty morning – the steam exhaled by local dairy cows as they trooped back to their paddock mingled with the valley mist, and the frost crunching underfoot glittered in the rising sun as it climbed over the hills to paint the dark waters of the lake, just momentarily, bright gold. It was beyond my powers of description and beyond the capacity of my camera to capture – I commend it to anyone who’s feeling jaded with life.

Only one of us was energetic enough to drive to Boonah for the markets –so Di was immediately bombarded with requests to ‘just pick up’ a couple of things for those of us too mellow to move. 

Lunch was the highlight meal of the weekend – we were celebrating our year’s birthdays in the book club, including 3 ‘big zero’ days for a 40, a 50, and (yay, that’s me!) a 70. So there was a flurry of table decorating and sharing oven space to reheat our set-menu dishes, bubbles chilling for toasts, and waiting for Rob S. to arrive with her offering – the birthday cakes! We missed having Rob to stay, she was unable to stay because of family commitments, but was Trojan enough to come for the day, and looked a million dollars. Also, our popular Club leader, Maxine, was joining us for lunch and we were all excited to have her there. Maxine is a reader of mind-blowing breadth and depth, and is well on her way to completing the ‘1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die'. Wow.

Lunch was huge and delicious and disjointed and funny and we all had a lot of fun. Nobody was motivated to embark on any of the activities we had tentatively planned, though Bianca helped some of us to achieve some rudimentary origami and we admired and discussed Jen’s furniture restoration projects and Rob S,’s mosaic tiling skills. So the afternoon drifted into snacks and drinks after we’d photographed another pink-gold sunset and retreated inside out of the chill – and so, seamlessly, onward to dinner of leftovers and a mountain of garlic bread (albeit severely charred) and sundry biscuits and chocolates.

Does it sound as if we did nothing but eat? Certainly felt like it! But it was also about fun and friendship and complete lack of everyday tension, bad jokes and giggles and exchange of book recommendations and condemnations.

After Possum Park, we vowed to compile a recipe book , and it simply got lost in our other lives – I think we need to discuss reviving the idea, because on every adventure we seem to put together food, not only of ridiculous quantity but also (in all modesty) of fantastic quality!

We said our goodbyes and drove home –I for one wanted one more day- and in my case, returned to work feeling refreshed and certain that I will never eat again.

Helen

BOOKS AND BUSH TUCKER

Or

CAN YOU GET A DECENT COFFEE AT POSSUM PARK?

Caffeine and Chapters, it must be said, is not just about the books, although we read, love, and discuss a great range of writing genres from classics through historical fiction to fantasy, murder, Australian literature, movie adaptations and biography. We use libraries, bookshops both new and second-hand, and Kindle readers.

So, a suggestion for a ‘reading retreat’ soon developed into fabulous plans for a long weekend at a bush retreat some 450 kms from the Coast –Possum Park, nearest town Miles, where 'Red Robin' negotiated a deal for 10 of us to stay in a converted WWII military storage depot. The available ‘digs’ include camping, railway carriage cottages, and the one we chose, a self-contained barn, which resembled, or may have been an original, curved roofed wartime Saar hut. All facilities provided, byo food and drink.

The reading theme was quickly decided; Thomas Hardy’s ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’ to be read and discussed over the weekend. Then the emails started flying: Menus! Who’s bringing what, choose your dinner dish to cook and take with us, and DON’T bring too much! Transport – car pool of 3 cars, to travel in convoy, who’s going with whom, exchange mobile phone numbers. So it was all collated and planned and the menus sounded mouth-watering and comprehensive. Some decided to take some wine though it wasn’t mentioned as a requirement! Came the night before, having been up to my eyes in work, family house moves etc. I was up late making chicken pie and dessert, then managed to leave my dessert at home because I fretted about leaving it in the fridge till the last possible moment.

The convoy assembled punctually at 8am at Oxenford – I was only punctual because I had Bianca with me to navigate to the right spot – and away we went. First stop Dalby, where Robyyn S. had to deliver some goods to the Red Cross centre and we were happy to take a cuppa and cookies break. Fully revived and in the mood for fun, we went on a productive shopping spree around Dalby’s excellent antique shop and op shops, egging each other on to spend on treasures. Who knew I would add to my miniature shoe collection by finding a French Limoges shoe in Dalby? What a coup!

After Dalby we drove into the dry, flat country, and had to stop suddenly when Jen lost the cover off her spare wheel – it apparently lost a clip, bounced onto the road and thankfully bounced and rolled across the road without hitting another vehicle. Sadly it was badly scraped and she was unable to refix it, but it could have been a lot worse. Then we were slowed down by post-flood roadworks and crawled for ages behind some huge trucks loaded with heavy machinery.

So everyone was relieved to arrive at Possum Park, where our hosts were friendly and had us installed in our ‘igloo’ in quick time. Having experienced some fairly low –standard camping parks in the inland, I think we were all delighted by the space, interior finish of timber panelling and spotlessly clean presentation of our retreat; there was an ensuite double bedroom and a huge 5-bed dormitory as well as 3 beds in the living area, and a modern, well-stocked kitchen. No roughing it for the Caff’n’Chaps on this trip.

Claiming beds and bringing in the baggage, it soon became obvious that we had all packed lightly with clothing – and quite excessively with food and beverages! The fridge was groaning after 10 minutes, and the first night’s menu was decided very simply by the necessity of eating what we couldn’t fit in the fridge. Meanwhile we got giggly over bubbles and endless snacks, some of us parading in the clothing bargains found in Dalby.

We went walking to explore the park, finding concrete bunkers dug into hills – they were used for ammunition storage originally, and currently some are used to store straw, while some are being converted into cave style accommodation – which will be great in the hot summer, I imagine. The gardens are beautifully maintained with colourful native and exotic plants, and imaginative plantings in tubs and an old wheelie bin. There are delightful little courtyards with rustic seats made of local timber, and even a small bush chapel.

Back to the igloo and all in high spirits, time to get dinner organised: it is important to take constant precautions against anorexia. Dinner was heated in the oven – eventually; yours truly turned the oven on but didn’t notice that there was also a master switch to adjust! We dined royally, a 3-course feast with beverages of choice, and agreed we must compose a Possum Park cookbook to share our recipes. One helpful soul offered to detail where she’d purchased her vegetable crisps.

Eventually we came to discussing our chosen book du jour, and out came the e-books and tree-books – at which time I suffered a severe attack of Kindle envy when I discovered that Jen has the LATEST kindle, a truly beautiful and even lighter-weight gem in a purple case; it is great. Grrr.  Discussion of ‘The Mayor’ was foreshortened when we found that someone had brought the DVD along, so we promptly settled in to watch it instead. However, most of us yielded to the weariness of the long drive, the big meal, and the wine, heading for showers and bed. Great beds, another big plus for the venue.

The early risers in the morning, despite being as quiet as possible, no doubt annoyed the sleep-in members, but we all sorted ourselves out for breakfast, walking, reading, while some drove back to Miles to see the Art Gallery and explore the shops. Most of us settled for lazing in the sun with books and crochet lessons and just hanging out feeling relaxed. Another group walk took us exploring the area, and we found the disused Kowguran railway siding: no doubt in years past it was a train stop where the locals would have received their supplies and farm equipment and despatched their produce. Disused railways always invoke nostalgia in me, as I remember a childhood in the bush where the railway brought our mail, school lessons, and groceries, and we watched wool bales loaded for distant markets.

Saturday night’s dinner was just as huge, voted even tastier than the previous night’s efforts, and devoured enthusiastically as Red Robin worried about excessive leftovers and urged us to eat more! Yep, we definitely over-catered, but who cares?

Robyn S. had brought along some of her beloved collection of old movies, so we had a great evening drooling over handsome young Troy Donoghue, exclaiming over Sandra Dee’s impossible cuteness (even with orange lipstick) and poking fun at some of the corny dialogue – and reired for another sound sleep.

Packing up and leaving on Sunday, everyone was still in good spirits and unanimously voted it a fantastic weekend retreat; we were already planning another, and delegated Jen to explore the possibilities of her suggested venue at the Sunshine Coast.

This is a terrific book club, and it was great to be with a group of women of all ages, all having a marvellous time and not a complaint or a sour note in the whole occasion. What’s more, I totally recommend Possum Park to anyone who is ready to leave the coastal resorts and get a taste of the inland. Just choose the right company.

Helen