Tamarillos - ‘tomate de arbol’ - Lost food of the Incas

 Do you know what these are?......
Have you tasted them?






Since I have started playing around with food photography, I have been trying fruits I have never tasted before in the search of something different to photograph.

Their origins read like an ancient history book.







I have tried -

Persimmons                   and       Cumquats  from China

















  



Pomegranates from Iran to the Himalayas

and Quinces  from Turkey

                        

My latest sweet tangy tart taste sensation is Tamarillos - lost food of the Incas.

According to the New Zealand Tamarillo Growers Association - 

Tamarillos are a relative of the potato, tomato, eggplant and capsicum pepper. Also known as the tree tomato it is native to Central and South America.  Listed among the lost foods of the Incas and known as the ‘tomate de arbol’, tree tomatoes have all but disappeared from their native habitat.

Tamarillos were first introduced into New Zealand from Asia in the late 1800’s.  Originally only yellow and purple-fruited strains were produced.  The red tamarillo was developed in the 1920’s by an Auckland nurseryman from seed from South America.

Tamarillos rate very highly as a source of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants when compared with other common fruits and vegetables.

Tamarillos can be eaten raw (don't eat the skin), cooked, in savoury and sweet dishes, and in chutneys, jams and sauces.      

I found a very simple recipe - just halve, dolop on a bit of butter, spoon on some brown sugar, grill under the griller for a minute or so, and then serve with yoghurt. I added some Pomegranate seeds too.   Oh my goodness! Delicious! Delicious! 

I am going to have to try my friend's recommendation  -  "I peel and slice them, sprinkle them with a good bit of icing sugar and leave them to sit a few hours or overnight. You get this wonderful sweet and tangy flavours. Looks fantastic and tastes great with Pavlova."

  Have you tried Tamarillos?  Is there another interesting fruit or vegetable you have just discovered?
 If you haven't tried Tamarillos before you should! ps - don't eat the skin. 
I am going to put some away in the freezer to add into my tomato chutney next summer. 

I have just added three tamarillos to the tomato sauce in this Pumpkin & Recotta Cannelloni - they certainly added an extra tang. You peel them by first plunging them in boiling water for a few minutes - like you would do with tomatoes. They can then be peeled easily.
I wish I knew how to make cannelloni look less messy on the plate!

Want to find out more about Tamarillos? You will find lots of background info, recipes etc by  clicking onto the New Zealand Tamarillo Growers Association site here - Tamarillo

Thanks for stopping by. I look forward to hearing from you.
I am linking up with Mosaic Monday and Our World Tuesday. Please click on the link to see contributions from around the world.  Mosaic Monday at Little Red House
Our World Tuesday

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The need for water on the goldfields - Perth to Kalgoorlie Pipeline Project - Western Australia

Welcome back. 
Last week we continued our tour north from Cave Hill along the Woodlines to Coolgardie and I told you a little about the goldrushes and the Perth to Kalgoorlie Pipeline. 
Click here if you missed it - Coolgardie - Gold Fever

Most Australians have probably heard of the Perth to Kalgoorlie pipeline in Western Australia. It is a feature of the Great Eastern Highway as you travel between Perth and Kalgoorlie. You can follow the Golden Pipeline Heritage Trail and stop at interpretive sites along the way where you can learn more about this huge engineering project.

When gold was discovered at Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie, thousands of prospectors flocked to the goldfields. In the arid and hot dry conditions of the goldfields, water was scarce and was sold by the can and became more expensive than whiskey. Water supplies from artesian bores, wells (such as Hunt's well at Gnarlbine - see previous post) and condensing plants, provided some water, but not enough for the thousands of people and livestock at the goldfields The lack of fresh water led to poor sanitation and diseases such as typhoid. 

John Aspinall in 1895 described condensed water as "inspid, resembling boiled water with a dash of galvanized iron and several other unrecognizable substances including smoke".

In 1895 the first plans were prepared by Engineer-in-Chief CY O'Connor, for an engineering feat that would stagger the world — an attempt to pump fresh water uphill 560 kilometres from Mundaring Weir in the Darling Ranges near Perth to the goldfields of Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie.

The story of the CY O'Connor and the pipeline is revered in WA history. Built between 1898 and 1903, the pipeline has delivered water to Kagloorlie for over 100 years.

What I didn't know was that sections of the pipe were replaced with wooden pipes wrapped in wire in the 1930s.  As we travelled along the Golden Pipeline Heritage Trail, just east of Yellowdine we found coils of wire laying by the old pipeline and wondered what they had been used for. 

The original pipes were constructed from steel but over the years corrosion and leakage occurred. During the 1930s the pipes were lifted, repaired or replaced, lined with concrete, re-laid above ground on concrete blocks and the lead-packed joints were replaced with welded joints. 

 

 Unemployment was very high during the Depression. The Goldfields Water Supply Department was put under political pressure to replace damaged sections with wooden pipes, providing jobs, boosting the timber industry and saving costs. 

 

The wooden pipes were made of karri planks bound together with galvanised wire, and then coated with tar and bitumen. 64 kilometres of wooden pipes were used in low pressure sections. However they were plagued with leakage problems, termite damage and dry rot, and were all replaced in 1971.

Where possible the pipeline was built alongside the route of the existing railway line to enable the pipes to be easily transported. Interestingly, the length of the train carriages determined the length of the pipes (28 feet or 8.5 metres). Eight pump stations were built along the length of the pipeline to push the water along the pipe. Below you can see the old Merredin Pumping station. 

 CY O'Connor was a great visionary and is much revered in Western Australian history.  He was responsible for planning and building major public works during the 1890s that stimulated the development of Western Australia including the Fremantle Harbour.  

The pipeline project was one of Australia's greatest engineering feats of the nineteenth century. Sadly he never lived to see the pipeline operating. Funding delays, political resistance and extreme criticism took a toll on O’Connor and he tragically took his life in the ocean near Fremantle on 10 March 1902, ten months before the pipeline’s completion. 

 

Lord and Lady Forrest officially opened the scheme ten months after O'Connor's death, in three separate ceremonies at Mundaring, Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie on 22 and 24 January 1903. The scheme cost £2 655 220, only slightly more than O'Connor's estimate made seven years earlier (which did not include the extension to Kalgoorlie). 

Today the Goldfields and Agricultural Areas Water Supply Scheme supplies water for domestic, stock and mining purposes to 33,000 rural and town services, to over 100 000 people throughout the goldfields and surrounding agricultural areas, through 8,000 km of pipe over an area covering 44 000 square kilometres. An average of 90 million litres of water is pumped daily taking 5-11 days to reach Kalgoorlie. The pipe network holds 300 million litres of water.

Below you can see the end of the pipe at the Mt Charlotte Reservoir in Kalgoorlie and a view of Kalgoorlie from Mt Charlotte. Today, Mount Charlotte Reservoir is used as a reserve tank. A new main holding tank is located on Mt Percy to the north.

 To learn more, please go to: Golden Pipeline
Valuing Heritage - the Pipeline 

The boys enjoyed exploring the pipeline too!
Thank you for stopping by - I hope you have enjoyed the continuation of our tour. 

 I look forward to hearing from you.

I am linking up to Mosaic Monday, Our World Tuesday and Travel Photo Thursday.  Please click on the links to see other contributions from around the world - Mosaic Monday -  Our World Tuesday   Travel Photo Thursday

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Coolgardie - Gold Fever! - Western Australia

Hi everyone, we are back to the goldfields today and continuing our tour up from the Holland Track, Cave Hill, Burra Rock and the Woodlines. If you missed the previous posts you can click on the links here - 
The Holland Track
Cave Hill, Burra Rock and the Woodlines

From Burra Rock it is an easy drive via the gravel Burra Rock and Napean Roads to Coolgardie. 

Bayley and Ford discovered gold at Fly Flat, near Coolgardie, in June 1892 - a year before Hannan, Flanagan and Shea found gold in Kalgoorlie. The discoveries lead to a gold rush which rivaled the Californian and the Klondike gold rushes, and said to be the greatest movement of people in Australia's history. 

Prospectors piled their possessions onto wooden carts, horse-drawn wagons, on horseback, or even walked pushing wheelbarrows to travel overland from Fremantle, Perth, Esperance and Albany to the goldfields. (I told you a bit more about this in my Holland Track post). 

On the goldfields they lived in tents or rough bush shelters, like the one you see below on display at the Kalgoorlie Mining Hall of Fame. (That is a mine head you can see in the background).

My grandfather and great-grandfather came to the goldfields from Victoria, before working on the pipeline and Mundaring Weir projects, and then finally settling at Narrogin and Bilbarin.

It was a tough life and many died in the attempt to strike it rich. There are many unnamed graves in the Coolgardie cemetery, but you can look through the register in the Coolgardie museum if you are looking for the resting place your ancestor - as we did!

A couple of years ago we discovered that my husband's Grandfather was buried at the Coolgardie cemetery in a plot only marked by a number. Since then we have had a headstone erected, and on this trip we went to see it. Now his life and his final resting place have been marked.  You can see the Coolgardie Cemetery in the photos below. Located on the western side of town on the Great Eastern Highway, it is an interesting place to visit as there is a lot of history recorded on its headstones.

Coolgardie was declared a townsite on 24 August 1893 and at its peak had a population of 16,000, with another 10,000 in the surrounding area, 7 newspapers, 2 stock exchanges, 6 banks, 23 hotels, and 3 breweries. Today its heritage precinct is a 'living museum' where you can learn about the history of the gold rush.  It really is worth stopping to look at the magnificent architecture and building.

Below you can see the Coolgardie Town Hall, government offices and Court House, which houses an excellent museum. Completed in 1898, this building is one of the finest examples of early Australian architecture.

A lot of the original buildings were probably built of wood boughs or corrugated tin. However the Government buildings were often built from local stone quarried in the area, and reflected solidarity, the wealth of the goldfields, and their prospects for the future. Now, in Coolgardie, as in other similar early mining towns, the solid stone buildings and a couple of hotels are all that remain. (Cue in the Western Australian mid west is another good example).
 

The area is dotted with mine shafts, so you need to be careful if you go walking. Here is a photo of a minehead located on a look out hill overlooking the town.






Today the Coolgardie only has a small population mostly involved in gold and nickel mining and pastoralism. Below you can see the main street of Coolgardie (the Great Eastern Highway), now very quiet and very different to what it was during the gold rush era. The road is very wide to allow camel and bullock trains to turn in the street.

From Western Australia

Here is another photo of the government buildings in Coolgardie. You could easily spend an hour or two in the museum and strolling around the town.


A prospector's cart displayed in the museum. The museum is a fascinating place to visit.


 
In the hot dry conditions of the goldfields, water was scarce, and was distilled and sold by the can. In 1895 the first plans were prepared by Engineer-in-Chief CY O'Connor, for an engineering feat that would stagger the world — an attempt to pump fresh water uphill 560 km, from Mundaring Weir in the hills near Perth to the goldfields of Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie.

The pipeline was completed in 1903, and is still in use today supplying water through 8000 kilometres of pipe to over 100,000 people and six million sheep throughout the goldfields and surrounding agricultural areas, over an area covering 44 000 square kilometres. 
(I will be back to tell you about that another day).

The pipeline is a major feature of the Great Eastern Highway on the way to Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie.



From Coolgardie we decided to go south along the gravel Victoria Rock Road to Gnarlbine Rock - 29km to the south. Explorer Henry Maxwell Lefroy camped here and discovered water on 8 June 1863, followed by Charles Cooke Hunt on 16 August 1864. Hunt improved the well and recorded its indigenous name, Mullinquirt. The rock, soak and well were one of the principal water supplies for the Coolgardie goldrush before the building of the pipeline.  John Holland and his party arrived at Gnarlbine on 16 June 1893, and reached Coolgardie on 18 June 1893.

As you can see in the images below, the well is now disused, but you can see the dry- stone wall construction, typical of hand built wells of that era. The rock is a great place to take a break, go for a walk or have lunch.  Our children enjoyed looking for tadpoles in the gnamma water holes on the rock.

My exploration of both Charles Cooke Hunt and John Holland with started a few years before when we found a "H" blazed on a tree near Cave Hill, intersected at Gnarlbine.

In the Coolgardie Pioneer cemetery is Agnes and John Holland's headstone - Agnes, died on 7 May 1894 at the age of 25, and John on 10 November 1936 at the age of 80.

Thanks for stopping by. I look forward to hearing from you and hope you have enjoyed the next part of our tour, but it is not over yet. We still have more granite rocks to explore, history to discover, and camps to camp.  

Do you like deliving into your ancestor's and country's history? I think the older I get the more interested I become. How about you?

I am linking up with Mosaic Monday, Our World Tuesday and Travel Photo Thursday. Please click on the links to see contributions from around the world.  
Mosaic Monday
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Time out weekend - Margaret River, Western Australia.

This week we have a change of pace from the last few weeks of 4WD touring and bush camping in the eastern wheatbelt and southern goldfields - but I will be back to show you some more of this fascinating area very soon. 

Last weekend we had a time out weekend - a time to slow down, sit, walk in the bush, stroll on the beach, explore a couple of caves, do some wine tasting, eat out, and generally relax. 
Here is some late afternoon autumn light over the grape vines. The leaves are browning off now that the grape pick is done and late autumn is here. 

The place? Harmony Forest, a few kilometres along Sebbes Road, only about 16kms south of Margaret River in the heart of the spectacular Capes region of Western Australia.

The setting? Eight self contained cottages are set in natural bushland backing onto a vineyard. You really don't have to leave for the whole weekend if you don't want to!

Did we like it? Yes! Absolutely beautiful. The cottages, the location, the peace, the tranquility. All perfect. 

Below you can see what greets you when you enter the property. Can you see the little building in the middle RHS? This is "reception". Just open the door, pick up the phone, pick up the map, they tell you which cottage is yours, and where the key is. Simple! no fuss. 

Our cottage was beautiful. Set in Kari and Jarrah forest. There are only eight cottages on the property all separated by about 100 metres of bush. You can't see your neighbours at all - so very private. The cottages are beautiful inside and out. Oh my gosh, I love the light coming through these windows! I wish I had them at home!

You are free to walk along the bush tracks (varying length trails), and around the vineyard (although not through the vines as they are fenced by a very high fence to keep out the kangaroos). It is autumn here and so the vines are browning off and dropping their leaves. It would be fascinating to visit when they are harvesting the grapes for wine making. We sampled Harmony Forest's 2010 Private Select Merlo - beautiful - and bought another bottle to bring home with us.  Merlot grapes were first planted here in 1999. They currently supply grapes to some of the most respected wineries in the region. 

If you have the energy you can walk 8km along a sand track to the Boranup Gallery - a wonderful place to see local artisans exquisite work.But don't forget, you have to do the return 8km walk too!  Between the vineyard and our cottage was a little bridge through the trees and over the creek (middle RHS). Bottom left is a cockatoo feather I found.

Here are some kangaroos we saw when we went walking around the vineyard late one afternoon. You can see the high fence keeping them out of the vineyard on the right.

 On Saturday we had breakfast at the Lake Cave cafe (this was part of the package). And then walked it off exploring Mammoth Cave and Calgardup Cave - I will be back another day to tell you about the caves of the Capes.  We had a picnic lunch sitting on the beachfront at Prevelly - the surf was up! Afternoon tea at the gorgeous Voyager Estate (very elegant) (and just one of the many wineries dotted throughout the Capes) and then dinner that night at the Karridale Tavern (excellent food and good value for money - and only 10-15 minutes from our cottage). 

But for simplicity how about afternoon drinks at this spot.... (we saw this on our walk this morning)

I hope you have enjoyed this small taste of what the spectacular Capes region of the south west of Western Australia has to offer. The Capes spreads from Cape Naturaliste to Cape Leeuwin. It is home to many wineries, breweries, artisans, restaurants, the Cape to Cape walking trail, caves, The Leeuwin Naturaliste National Park, and a premier surfing region. There are many different accommodation options - from bush camping to 5 star - the choice is yours!

I am so lucky to have this very beautiful corner of our state within only a couple of hours from home. I will be back to show you some more another day.

To finish......the morning view from our porch at Harmony Forest........can you feel the peace and tranquility.........  

 Do you have a special place you like to go for a "get away from it all" weekend?

Thank you for stopping by dear reader. I look forward to hearing from you. 

I am joining wonderful contributors from around the world at Mosaic Monday, Our World Tuesday and Travel Photo Thursday. Please click on the links to see more - Mosaic Monday  
Our World Tuesday
Travel Photo Thursday 

 Want to find out more about Harmony Forest?  Please click on the link here - Harmony Forest  . I can thoroughly recommend Harmony Forest for a weekend getaway. (and no they are not paying me to say so!)

You can find out just about all you want to know about living and touring in Western Australia's south west by going to Jo Castro's fabulous site - ZigaZag - please click on the link here - Zigazag - Living in Western Australia


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Cave Hill, Burra Rock and the Woodlines, Western Australia

A couple of weeks ago I brought to you our trip along the Holland Track deep in the vast Great Western Woodlands south of the Coolgardie/Kalgoorlie goldfields in Western Australia. Click here if you missed it - Holland Track

If you have been waiting for the next part of the trip you are in luck - because here it is!
Today we continue our trip along the Woodlines to Coolgardie via Cave Hill and Burra Rock.

Leaving our last camp at Thursday Rock along the Holland Track, we headed east for about 21kms to Victoria Rock Road where we turned south for about 8kms, and then turned east onto the track leading to Cave Hill.

Victoria Rock Road is a well maintained dirt and gravel road that comes up from the Hyden Norseman Road to the south. (distance from Coolgardie to the Hyden Norseman Rd is approx 143km) However the track could possibly become boggy during winter and care needs to be taken to look out for washaways across the track.

Here is a pic I took along the Victoria Rock Road a couple of years ago. 

There are several 4WDrive-only tracks into Cave Hill but we turned at the official sign “Cave Hill 45kms”, rather than taking one of the earlier bush tracks marked by rough signs on corrugated iron.

There are bush tracks throughout this region known as “The Woodlines” – a network of hundreds of kilometres of abandoned railway formations south of the Coolgardie/Kalgoorlie goldfields. 4WDrivers can explore the area by following the old formations – however it is advisable to carry a GPS as amongst the network of tracks you could easily become lost.

 During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s timber cutters took hundreds of thousands of tonnes of wood out of this area to supply the goldfields with wood for structural timber for building and to shore up underground mining shafts as well as fuel for domestic use, locomotives and for steam engines which drove water pumping stations and electricity generators. 

The Western Australian Goldfields Firewood Supply Ltd was formed in 1899 and initially operated from the Kurrawang Siding 13km west of Kalgoorlie. Camps moved as wood was exploited. A main camp was located at Burra Rock between 1928 and 1932 as the woodlines snaked south. Cave Hill became the main camp between 1932 to 1938, followed by Lakeside, 4km south of Boulder.

It was wonderful to see how the Salmon Gum and Gimlet forests have naturally reforested. This area lays within the environmentally significant Great Western Woodlands which is preserved by Nature Reserves, Conservation Parks and National Parks. The Great Western Woodlands covers sixteen million hectares -  the largest and healthiest remaining Mediterranean climate woodland left on earth.

 Cave Hill is an impressive granite monolith – 1 kilometre wide and 1.5km long – rising 50 metres above the surrounding woodland. For thousands of years prior to European settlement, the Ngajtu Aboriginal people passed through this area and camped at Cave Hill so it is an important indigenous cultural site.

Explorer, Charles Cooke Hunt camped at Cave Hill in 1864 and named Cave Hill for the hollowed out wind sculptured cave on the western face. Hunt camped here several times during his attempts to penetrate the desolate region in search of permanent water supplies.  (in the picture above you might be able to see a "H" carved into the tree on the right of the bottom left photo - Did Hunt carve his initial on the tree? This was my start to a fascination with the history and explorations of Hunt). 

The cave is a one kilometre walk from the camping area or 30 minutes return – moderate difficulty. Visitors are asked to view the cave from the viewing platform due to the instability of the cave formation. Four catchment dams can also be seen which were constructed on the rock near natural depressions during the Woodlines era. Rainwater was diverted into the dams by stone slab walls cut from the rock. You can see one of the dams and a diversion wall below.

The camping area at Cave Hill was spacious with plenty of room to set up a camper trailer or tent. There is a drop toilet, tables and fire rings.  You can see the Cave Hill camping area in the image below -

 From Cave Hill there are two ways to get to Burra Rock approximately 40kms to the north. You can take the formed gravel road, or along the 4WD-only track (as we did) which follows the old railway tracks and embankments. The turn off is signposted. 

 
 As the track is slightly raised we didn’t seem to encounter the number of boggy sections as we did on the Holland Track but the track may be closed when wet. It was an attractive drive through the ribbon gums - Eucalyptus  Sheathiana – these eucalyptus trees shed their bark in long strips annually. The track is only one vehicle width and in places the scrub comes up to the edge of the track.  We stopped along the way for a lunch and to give the children a chance to run around. Along the way you may see evidence of the old railway. 

 
The Burra Rock campground is only about 200-300 metres from Burra Rock. The campground is open with plenty of room to set up and attractively located amongst eucalypts. There is a flushing toilet, picnic tables and fire rings, although please bring your own firewood and be aware of seasonal fire restrictions. 

Bush camping is a great way to introduce children travel, the environment and new outdoor experiences. They loved being able to run over the rocks exploring, and also learning about nature. But please do keep track of them! In the picture below you can see one of our children taking a close look at the lichen on Burra Rock. 

 
At the day use area at the base of the rock you will find interpretive panels and some old farming machinery from a small farm here in the 1960s. From here you can climb the rock to see the magnificent 360 degree views over the regrowth woodlands to Cave Hill.  Granite rock walls, built from granite slabs hewn on the site, direct rain water into a 11 million gallon dam.

It was a huge undertaking to build these walls. We read that to hew the slabs from the rock the men lit big fires on the rock and let them burn all night. The the morning the granite would be red hot. They carted tanks of water on a dray, and threw the water onto the rock. The rock would explode in big slabs which they could then sledge away. The slabs were stood on end to create the rock walls. As you can see in the image below, cemented together and propped up on one side by more rocks.

 
 Views from Burra Rock to Cave Hill. What a wonderful trip we had travelling and exploring with our family.

From Burra Rock it is 2WD 60km gravel/bitumen road to Coolgardie. But it was not the end of our trip.  I hope you have enjoyed this post, and will come back and visit again when I bring you the next part of our exploration through this part of Western Australia. 

I am linking up with Our World Tuesday and Travel Photo Thursday - please click on the links to see postings from contributors all around the world.
Our World Tuesday
Travel Photo Thursday 

MORE INFORMATION:
 

Facilities at Cave Hill & Burra Rock – toilet, tables, fire rings. Please be aware of fire bans and please take away all your rubbish with you.

Fees: Nil

Pets: not allowed

Cultural sites: Cave Hill and Burra Rock are important aboriginal cultural sites, so please respect these places.

For more information please click on the links:

Department Environment & Conservation - DEC campgrounds

Great Western Woodland - Gondwanalink– then go to “Achieving the Vision” tab and click on “Great Western Woodland”

Explore Oz – Explore Oz

An excellent guide book with GPS coordinates and notes on points of interest is - "Explore the Holland Track and Cave Hill Woodlines" by Nick Underwood. Explorer Series - Westate Publishing.

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