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Published: March 14th 2015
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According to the caravaner’s bible, ‘Camps Australia Wide’ suggested there was a lovely free camping spot at The Granites just north of Kingston so with an open mind we decided to check it out
It turned out to be a sizeable bituminized carpark located just behind a small sand dune but with some sea views if you were lucky. There was a small viewing platform from which a constant stream of visitors stopped to take photos. A 4x4 track down to the beach giving access to fishing locations many miles north and south providing you were in and out between the low tides. The clean sandy beach stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions. An isolated group of granite rocks stood proud at the waters edge, hence the name. This was quite bizarre as there were no other rocks to be seen anywhere.
Few visitors seemed to venture onto the beach, but the 4x4 beach access was obviously heavily used by the locals.
We temporarily parked the van to check out the beach and assess whether we wanted to stay for the night. Three
local guys were cooking a BBQ of chops, sausages and tomatoes on their tail gate. All washed down with a long neck of home brew. It smelled jolly good. Passing them on the way to the beach Greg commented on the idyllic nature of their activity. The perfect way to finish a morning of fishing … or cockling as it turned out. A bit of banter later they were offering us cockles when they found we like to eat them and not just use them for bait which was why they had collected them. Forty or so was not a big sacrifice given the large number they had collected. They were interested in how we would cook them so we shared our usual recipe. Jokingly they asked when they should come back the next day for a taste, but we told them they would be too late they would be well and truly gone by then.
We set the cockles in a bucket of water to purge for the afternoon. Lunch done and the tide on the rise we set off to try our hand at fishing. Unfortunately it was very windy so
we gave up pretty quickly as within seconds of casting our lines were metres down the beach in the shallows. A slack cast may even finish up with your line in the sand behind you. Still we were happy; we had seafood for dinner caught from the local beach even if not by us.
As the afternoon wore on the ideas developed for the cockle dish. The on board pantry lacked some of the usual ingredients we would use to cook cockles so we went down a slightly different flavour path. After caramelising chorizo; onions, chilli and garlic were added to the pan, then fresh tomatoes, diced zucchini and fresh marjoram and parsley. Meanwhile pasta spirals were cooking in boiling water. The cockles were added to the sauce along with a few more baby tomatoes. Once the cockles had started to open the drained spirals were added to the pan. With the cockles opened the dish was served. Topped with shaved parmesan this made the perfect dish. Thanks guys. We think you would have been happy with our creation. Pity you weren’t there so we could have shown you the best thing to
do with cockles is not necessarily to use them as fish bait.
Since we only had a 20km drive to our next stop at Kingston we were in no rush to depart and so enjoyed a lazy start to another glorious day. We meandered down the beach, exploring the three granite rocks currently accessible. A good photo spot.
Having left the caravan connected to the 4WD there was very little to do in preparation for our departure for Kingston.
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Yvonne bruce
non-member comment
Just for you
It has taken me years to pay for and move those rocks to that particular location just for your querying pleasure.?