Loaves and fishes (and Bunips)
Well, it hasn’t ALL been about my innards around here lately. Actually, very little of it has been about me. But you’d never know if you read this blog so I have decided to put aside my ‘real’ work and update so we can all think about something OTHER than gallstone gardens. Heh.
Despite my tummy troubles, I managed to do a small mountain of cooking on Wednesday – baking about 50 chocolate mudcake muffins and 60 sausage rolls. (And for once in my life, did absolutely NO taste testing!). Early Thursday morning, I heated up the sausage rolls, carefully packed up the glazed muffins, warm rolls, tablecloths and some cut lavendar with empty moccona jars, and drove off into the morning mist.
I was heading to the Bunyip Hole to help the P&C from our little one-teacher school cater for more than a thousand cyclists.
You heard me… (event description here) around 1200 cyclists of all ages travelled to our local town (doubling it’s population for 36 hours and doing wonders for the local economy) and then moved through our area, taking in the wonderful Bunyip Hole for morning tea and stopping at our little school for lunch. And let me tell you, twelve families catering for 1200 people… well, it was a logistical challenge.
Cyclists started arriving early – some passing by at 7.15am!
The track detoured off the bitumen briefly so they could take in the sights of the massive blue gum trees amongst the water from recent rains.
You can see our tent set-up in the background of this shot… taken from near the Bunyip Hole.
By 8.30am the real line-ups for some home-cooked tucker began in earnest…
We had been told that not all would want smoko (although a lot seemed to!) but everything must be home-cooked and NOT packet mix. We were a little affronted by this request (honestly!) and baked our little hearts out.
I didn’t have time to take photos of the actual spread I’m afraid – the hungry hordes overtook the Nikon in priority once I was under that canvas…
We served coffee (one man had THREE spoons of coffee in his!), tea, pikelets, muffins, slices, damper, scones, and fruit. And the obligatory Gatorade.
The cyclists were extremely friendly and happy – of all ages, shapes and sizes (and the variety in shirt design was spectacular!).
Apparently they were happy with our offerings (even the lady who had to wait for the gluten-free cake to arrive) and my sausage rolls sold out.
I took a ten-minute break to walk down to the Bunyip Hole with some friends of Mum and Dads.
Kirsty and Ian are people I don’t get to see too often these days, and it was wonderful to (briefly) catch up with a couple who never seem to age. Dad went to school with Ian and I cannot imagine Dad riding a bike a few thousand kilometres. A horse, maybe. They are a pair of 70-somethings with some GO, that’s for sure. (Carefully adding here that Kirsty is NOT 70-something and looks spectacular for whatever her age is!).
There were Mums and daughters, tandem bikes…
And those weird lay-back bikes with three wheels. Of course there were not only the riders involved with this spectacular moving feat of organisation…
There were the support crew (of around 180) to keep things moving smoothly along. There were some real characters amongst these guys, including the two above!
And of course, the mobile ablutions block. (Because the bush art of ‘going behind a tree’ might have gotten a little crowded, even WITH all those blue gums!).
We packed up our leftovers (not many, but still amazing considering how many people were fed) after almost four hours of serving food and beverages.
Tired but happy with our mornings work.
I have more photos of the riders at the school… but let’s give y’all a coffee-and-ablutions break now.
Am hoping you can cater for yourselves!
🙂
BB
10 Comments
Leenie
Not quite feeding 5000 with loaves and fishes. But your menu looks MUCH MUCH better!! Would make the cycle-saddle sores almost worth the effort. Looks like that kind of bicycle trip is a great way to stay young.
Unlike the trip my oldest son will make tomorrow. He was “lucky” enough to make it into the LOTAJA. This is one of the longest single-day cycling races in North America. It goes from Logan, Utah to Jackson, Wyoming–206 miles (332 km). And over 3 mountain passes. I hope the boy has good health insurance. He needs counseling I know that!
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Kelly
Wow! What an event!!
Congrats to the cyclists AND to all you who cooked for them!
Kelly´s last blog post ..One of those days
Teri
What an adventure… for both the cooks and the bikers! ;-D
Teri´s last blog post ..Photo Challenge- Reflecting on Reflection
Amanda
Awesome work, awesome people, awesome place.
Well done!
Amanda´s last blog post ..Dear Darl- it’s September 10 A crap day where another family join this -& club
jeanie
Well done – I was feeling for you, having to serve all of those goodies – and thank goodness you aren’t that lady who has to wait for her gluten-free cake just yet!
Your new version of sausage rolls could be rice paper rolls, couldn’t they?
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ellie k
I worked school food service for 23 years and know serving this many people is hard work but can be fun. We served over 700 breakfasts and 1100 lunches every day plus a teachers lunch. This was when we really cooked food, now a lot of the food is frozen and just heated up. I usually made about 900 home made yeast rolls for the lunch each day.
debby
1000 kilometers on a bike. Hm. That would be great fun. Unless I was pedaling 1000 kilometers on a bike.
debby´s last blog post ..Friday Weigh In- Thoughts about Nothing
Hippomanic Jen
Lots of effort, but it looked like they all enjoyed themselves. I’d not be surprised to see one of our friends from CQ days in your photos (because he does long bike rides around the place). He wasn’t, though.
Can’t imagine having 12 families cater for 1200 people. All you’d need is for me to be one of the family cooks and you’d be sunk!
Theresa in Alberta
WOW!!! What a wonderful event to participate in!! you and your neighbours are great sports for feeding all of those riders. a cousin of mine cycled accross Canada one year, and stopped at my home over night. I was AMAZED at the quantity of food she could eat, but was super slender and fit…..
Nancy in Iowa
That’s the kind of overwhelming job that actually looks like fun! Good job, BB! Now another question from the Yank – when you used the term “smoko” in the past, I thought you were referring to cigs, etc. Now I realize it’s food – smoked food? Smoked meat? The sausages?
Learning Aussie a little at a time!!!