MCW Menu 7 Beef Stew on the beach at beautiful Brooms Head

[Yowie]

G'Day everyone. I hope all are well
This ration was my first trade ever, all thanks too nonamefound a few years ago.
Brooms Head is one of my favorite places in the world and last time I was there I thought I would take a hike down the beach and try out this one.

Just look at this bad boy :)

And the view......

Brooms Head is a beautiful little beachside village that has not changed in the 30 yrs I have known it. Its just a big campground a general store and a few houses, capped off with good surf, fishing and hikes into the hinterland and along the beach.
Cracking my MCW open I find

A lot of desserts and a genuine MRE spoon

The main

Even dehydrated this is a heavy bag and will be a big meal.

And the accessory pack

Matches, cider coffee sugar and Tabasco. All the standard stuff.

The Tabasco bottle was dry. It had not leaked but looked like it had just evaporated. (or was just an unlucky unfilled bottle)
I opened up the main for a look

You can see lots of beef chunks and vegetables (carrots, corn potatoes and maybe turnip)

After I poured in the requisite amount of boiling water, I sat back and had a look around for ten minutes

Cooking or re-hydrating or both

There's not much surf out there today

During the whale migrations you can often see humpbacks out there. Including the famous albino whale 'Migaloo'

Look like there might be rain on the way, but at the moment its about 25c with a nice breeze.
I discovered this a bit further up the beach, someone had put a lot of work into it

Driftwood hut

[Yowie]

Looks like it might let the weather in

Here is what it looks like after 10 mins

I added a little more water (I had been a bit wary of the amount of water I added as I have drowned other dehydrated meals)

Looks pretty good :)

This was a big meal, and that is saying something for me. I guess since its a cold weather meal they have more calories.
All in all it was a good feed, although a little bland. If I had a full bottle of tabasco it would have been perfect. All of the vegetables and meat chunks were moist, and not at all crunchy like you get with some dehydrated meals.
Still had some room for this

Chocolate covered cookie

This was great, cookie was tasty and chocolate was perfect.

Time to head back to camp

Pelicans in the lagoon

Along with a great day on the beach, this was a good ration to review. And I still have pound cake and Tootsie rolls for later around the campfire. All thanks too NNF
Yowie

[Name_not_found]

Great review Yowie!

The pics ohh man, i love the scenery

Glad you enjoyed!

[parafireboy]

Great review Yowie! Great pics, what a perfect place for some outdoor dining!

[Norton]

Thanks for the good review.
From your photos I can now see one of the differences between the Cold Weather FD beef stew and normal MRE wet pack beef stew. The portion of the main course is very large for the extra calories. The vegetables look very natural with big slices of potatoes.

Your beach photos are very interesting, who built the shelter mate? It looks like heaven on that beach.
Where there no other people around?

[housil]

Great pictures, thx for sharing

(...) capped off with good surf, fishing and hikes into the hinterland and along the beach.

You really use the German word "Hinterland"?!

[BlackDogBob]

Very cool review brother. Thoroughly enjoyed it. I have a couple RCWs laying around, and now I feel like I gotta jump in and eat one. Beautiful beach also. Great setting for a review.

[Yowie]

Hi all,
Thanks for the kind words,
@housil, yes mate we do use the German word 'hinterland' over here (English is famous for stealing useful words from other languages ). Around this area (Northern NSW and Southern Queensland)the hinterland is anything about 5km back from the beach and up until the outback. The Great Dividing Range mountains are not that far from the coast thereby hinterland A very useful word.

@Norton, I have no idea who built the shelter, but they did put a lot of work into it. Unfortunately when I went back the next morning to try to get some better pictures some A$$hole had knocked it over .
The pictures are on the back beach and there really was no one else on the beach. I will admit I was there in the off season though. The village probably has a permanent population of about 3 or 4 hundred, but over the summer holidays it gets up too 5000 or more. People pitch their tents at the start of December and don't pack up until February, but even when it is busy it is easy to find a quiet spot to sit and relax. I often go down to the back beach at night and build a driftwood fire and have a couple of beers.
Here are a few more shots to show you why I come here to decompress.......

The view from my tent

Looking back towards the village and headland on the main (front beach)

About 2km's up main beach, as you can see my footsteps are the only ones on the beach

At the top of this bluff is another campground (about 5 k's up main beach)

Two of the locals (thats not a fifth leg, its a near full grown Joey in the pouch). They are pretty quite around here as they are not hunted being its a national park. Best not to try to pet them though.

On the headland lookout at sunset. Looking down towards the back beach. I was about halfway down. At the far end is Plover Island and Sandon camping ground about 10 k's away

I have another ration review done on the beach somewhere, I will troll through my files and post it
Yowie

[Jebner]

Wow really nice meal and amazing beach thanks for the great pics

[BigMark]

You really use the German word "Hinterland"?!

It's not super common anymore, but most people would know it. We've got Uber now (pronounced oo-ber), but Americans only care about pronunciation if the word is Mexican in origin, not German. Like the street in San Antonio, Toepperwein, pronounced topperwine.