Batty's Brew

We had a lovely few days at Garry’s Anchorage. Fishing and crabbing was a daily occurrence for Tim and Bryce, as was beachcombing. Bryce and I went looking for what we hoped was one of the gorgeous lakes that exist on Fraser in the hopes of a swim.

We found Lake Garry and could see it from high atop the hill we were on but had no way of accessing it as the brush was so dense. We had called the Ranger station before we left to ask about access to the lake and they didn’t really know anything about it. They did tell us that no one had been out on the roads that we would be walking on in about two years as a bridge was down and had yet to be fixed.
We were using our GPS to help guide us to the lake. We realized much to late that switching it to satellite view would be far more useful as we would be able to see exactly which way the road went. Thankfully, the way we went took us to the closest point of the lake and so would’ve been the way we would have gone had we used this tool from the beginning. We had a couple of days with near gale winds, which meant that our wind generator was still producing electricity even with it’s break on.  What a novelty!

We were out of tonic water, which ruled out Gin and Tonics and it was just too hot to drink wine. So while the boys were ashore one afternoon catching their dinner, I came up with this concoction to welcome them home with. Unfortunately, I think people outside of Australia will have a hard time sourcing the ingredients for this deliciousness but if you can find them it’s well worth it. As with most drink mixing, at least the way I do it, ratios are approximate and based more upon what I have lying around than exact measures. You’ll find the recipe below.

Getting to sail Batty is still very much a novelty for us.

Leaving Garry's Anchorage

When we left Garry’s Anchorage, we were having a great time, playing with some of the rigging, trying to get the jib pole to work (we had been planning on trying to go wing on wing but by the time we were ready to the wind had died), putting the mainsail up and down, trying to find the best configuration for the jackstays.  New lesson learned: don’t get carried away in a sail and forget about the time!



All of the sudden we realized that the sun was setting and we weren’t really close to where we had wanted to be to anchor for the night. We turned on the engine quickly and got to where we needed to be at White Cliffs. We had an early start the next morning so it was early to bed. The current where we were was quite fast and was making such a racket against the anchor chain so we didn’t sleep very well.

White Cliffs by day

The next day, we were under a bit of a time crunch. Tim had a bus to catch to get home. As we were starting to come into River Head, the tide was coming out so fast that we weren’t moving at all, even under motor. So we dropped anchor and chilled out for an hour while we let it settle down. We got in, anchored and got Tim to shore just in the nick of time. When Bryce got back to the boat, we moved to a nearby anchorage and then went on a provisioning adventure, which is tomorrow’s story! :)

Sunset at River Head

 Batty’s Brew

1.125 L Bundaberg Ginger Beer (3 small bottle), cold
250 ml Gin
100 ml Lemon, Lime and Bitters cordial, diluted 1:4 with water
1 Lemon, sliced
1 orange, sliced

Combine all ingredients except Ginger Beer. Let chill and mesh.
When serving, serve 50:50, gin and fruit mixture to ginger beer.