After yet another big day yesterday, it was another early start, as we were off to the world-famous Eumundi markets!
In hindsight, I’m realising that we were actually pretty cruel in making our friends get up early almost every day. Then again, last time Kim and I travelled together, we were non-stop, so this holiday felt like a bit of a slow crawl for us. But I think we were wearing out the others, which became pretty clear when J sighed and said:
“Do we have to do something special every day?”
Sorry mate.
Breakfast at Eumundi Markets
The Eumundi Markets are Australia’s biggest art and craft markets, with so many incredible handmade goods on offer. There are loads of food stalls too, with coffee, homemade ginger beer, and lemonade (in the true style, for all my American friends, not Sprite, but still has nothing on Toomers).
What I was most excited about was showing the kids the poffertje stall. If you’re familiar with Bluey, the kids’ TV show, the “Markets” episode introduced audiences to the tiny Dutch pancakes. I think it’s pronounced “poff-ert-jus”, but I could be very wrong about that.
Some of my favourite childhood memories are the days when mum took us to the markets, and we got poffertjes. A bit of maple syrup, a sprinkling of icing sugar, a toothpick to pick them up… and oh boy, I was in heaven.
My son is a huge fan of them, and a complete chocolate fiend, so he opted for the chocolate version.
Meanwhile, A and J had fallen in love with potato slinkies, and they opted for one of those each for breakfast instead. One of them even added chicken salt to it – Australia is rubbing off on them!
Shaun had found a German stall, but unfortunately, the guy was still setting up for the morning. After Shaun checked in a couple of times, the guy finally had a fresh pretzel and sausage ready for him.
After we finished breakfast, we wandered around the stalls, before stopping at the playground to let the kids run amok. As expected, L had to climb to the top of the tallest thing he could find.
We did a bit more browsing through the stalls when we came across a store selling some fantastic Australian tourist merch. Kim quickly busied herself selecting mementos and gifts for those back home, including boomerangs and tea towels with Aussie animals. From memory, there were some pretty hilarious slogans too.
Kenilworth Donuts
After the markets, we headed further inland. Kim had heard of the famous Kenilworth Country Bakery, incredibly popular for their eating challenges and serving coffee in a donut.
Essentially, a section of the donut is removed, and the walls are lined with Nutella (or some other thick chocolate spread). The coffee is then poured in, with the chocolate preventing it from seeping through to the dough.
You first drink the coffee, and then the donut.
The challenge is that because of the heat of the coffee, the chocolate gets mighty gooey, so it can be messy to eat. And it’s sickly sweet, but so good.
The rest of us opted for meat pies and sausage rolls, which were as fantastic as ever.
Bellies full, we wandered over to the Kenilworth Dairies for a look. After that, the kids played a while at the playground, and then we decided to keep going.
Visiting an Icon
Before calling it for the afternoon, we visited the local shopping centre. Shaun wanted to check out the Kmart here, which has developed a bit of a cult following for fashion and cheap (but decent quality) homewares.
From what I understand, Kmart has almost entirely vanished in the US, so he was intrigued to see what it offered.
To get there, we were all still in two cars, with Kim, J and me in one car, and everyone else in the other.
As we were driving, I suddenly gasped and said we were taking a detour. The other car would miss it, but I simply had to show Kim and J, and I assured them it wouldn’t take long.
The destination?
Australia has a weird fascination with “big things”. I’m not kidding – as of 2022, there were over 1075 “big things” scattered around the country (thanks, Wikipedia). Big banana, big sheep, big mango, big terrifying prawns, and if you’re lucky (unlucky) enough to visit Rockhampton, you’ll be greeted by the ass of a big bull.
We literally drove in, Kim took a photo, and then we drove off again. A flying visit would be an understatement. But I feel like I would have regretted it if they hadn’t at least witnessed one on their holiday.
My husband rang soon after to see how far away we were, and when I told him why we were running late, he laughed, groaned, and said he’d see us soon.
Five minutes later, we were inside. They had already done a loop of the store. Writing this now, I honestly can’t remember if anyone bought anything. I feel like maybe it was a yes? We didn’t spend much time there anyway.
After that, we dropped Kim and her family back to their Airbnb for an afternoon of rest, before meeting up for dinner later that night. Honestly, I think we all needed it.
Surf Club for Dinner
If you’re not familiar with Australia, the Surf Clubs are dotted around the coastline, and are responsible for the lifesavers that keep our beaches safe. The clubs typically have a restaurant and pokies (slots) area, which helps to fund all the volunteer activities.
One of my favourite things about Surf Clubs is the meat tray raffles. You buy tickets from the volunteer life savers for the chance to win slabs of meat donated from the local butcher. It’s a lot of fun, and if you’re lucky enough to have a winning ticket, there’s usually enough meat in the tray to last you 3-4 family-sized meals easily.
I had suggested the Surf Club visit as another way to get a taste of Australian culture, with a bonus of a decent feed too.
So you can imagine I was absolutely gutted to discover that the raffle was for a voucher to use at the club, and not a meat tray! Even worse, there were only two prizes, and after a huge build-up, it was all over quickly, and we won absolutely nothing. Boo!
Still, we at least enjoyed our dinner, and had a nice night out.
After dinner we called it a night pretty early, because, you guessed it, we had another early start the next day. We were climbing a mountain!
Have you ever been super excited to show someone something only for it to be a big fizzer? Would you ever try a coffee in a donut?
