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Australian cattle stations (ranches) are often mentioned in the same breath as the Australian Outback.

For many people life in the Australian Outback is synonymous with living and working on an Outback cattle station.

I don't quite see it that way, but those Outback stations certainly are a big and important part of the Australian Outback.

This page is about the life, the work, and tourism on Outback cattle stations.

Drover Mustering Cattle

I highlighted the word big in the previous paragraph, because big they are... South and North America certainly produce a lot of cattle, too. (Brazil is the world's biggest exporter, before Australia at number two.) But if you look at the size of the individual stations you will find that the Australian cattle stations are by far the biggest in the world.

In fact, some Australian stations are bigger than some European countries... Take Anna Creek Station, well known as the biggest Australian cattle station: this station in the Outback of South Australia covers 6,000,000 acres, or 34,000 km ². (Belgium by comparison is just over 30,000 km ², and the biggest American ranch is about 6,000 km ².)

Why this huge size? Most of Australia's cattle stations are located in the north and the central regions of the Australian Outback. The Australian continent is so dry and the vegetation so sparse that a large amount of country is needed to support enough cattle to make a living.

This style of farming cattle is very different from what you might know, especially if you come from Europe. It is a very natural way. The animals are basically wild. They are usually born and grow up without any human contact. They are grass fed and rarely require any chemical treatment. Trust me, you can taste the difference between a steak from the Kimberley and one from a grain feed lot...

So how does an Australian cattle station operate?

A Group of Stockmen Mustering Cattle

The size and remoteness of these Australian cattle station defines the life style. Life is very isolated. Often the next human settlement is a day's drive away. Usually an Outback cattle station will have a little airstrip, and the mail plane will deliver mail and supplies on a regular basis.

Kids don't go to school. Their school is the " School Of The Air". In the past the teaching medium was the HF radio. Although today computers and satellites have replaced many of the radios, the title " School Of The Air" remains.

Any medical emergencies requires the help of the RFDS ( Royal Flying Doctor Service).

The centre of the universe on any station is the "homestead", the main building where the manager lives. It is surrounded by sheds, machinery, accommodation for workers, vegetable gardens, yards, and, and, and...

But the most important aspect of life on a cattle station is that, from the moment you arrive, you are part of a close knit team. Everybody here relies heavily on each other, and everybody works hard from sunrise to sunset. At least for a large part of the year.

The north of Australia, where most of the big cattle stations are found, has a distinct wet and dry season. The dry season is the time for mustering, an incredibly work intensive period of very long days.

Brahman Cattle are herded into a pen

Because of the rugged nature of the Australian Outback a lot of the mustering is still done on horseback. Even though more and more stations are using helicopters and motor bikes to help with rounding up cattle, horses are absolutely essential to the operations of a large cattle station.

(This aspect attracts many travellers to the life and work on a cattle station. If you, too, have dreams of becoming a cowgirl or cowboy for one summer, here is some info on finding work on Australian cattle stations.)

A lot of the mustering activity will take place far away from the homestead. There is no time to travel back and forth every day (and who would want to on those rough tracks), so the whole workforce moves to camp where the mustering is happening. Weeks may be spent in these camps, spending the evenings at the fire and sleeping in swags on the ground.

It may sound romantic, but first and foremost it is about hard work, for men, women and horses alike. Work starts before sunrise and continues after sunset, and there is no such thing as weekends or public holidays...

Stockmen and Cattle, Outback South Australia

The mustering work is about more than gathering the cattle. The mob needs to be settled, walked to the yards and the weaners segregated from the cattle that is to be sold. There is branding to do, the vet needs to inspect the animals, they may be treated if necessary, and eventually they need to be loaded on trucks or returned to their million acre paddocks.

Horses might need shoeing and vehicles might need maintenance, and someone has to keep the people fed... I don't think many would disagree if I say the station cook is one of the most crucial employees to any Australian cattle station...

And that is just some of the work that needs doing. Work, work, work, that it was station life is about. (You might have heard about the evening dinner show Australian Outback Spectacular, which is basically a circus show romanticising the life on an Australian cattle station. It's nothing like that.)

Still, despite the hard, long days and the meagre pay, talk to station people, be it the managers, workers or the cook. It's a hard life, but they wouldn't have it any other way. And if you're game to find out why, you can...
Return to top Finding work on Australian Outback stations
A reader story about life on a cattle station:
A little about our place, Kilcowera Station
Find out more about the Australian Outback Return from Australian Cattle Stations to the Outback Australia Travel Guide home page

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Outback Stations - Australian Cattle Stations

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Australian cattle stations (ranches) are often mentioned in the same breath as the Australian Outback. For many people life in the Australian Outback is synonymous with living and working on an Outback cattle station. I don't quite see it that way, but those Outback stations certainly are a big and important part of the Australian Outback.

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As the severity of the drought starts to hit home with the wider Australian population, more people are asking, "What can I do to help?"

There are links to a selection of drought charities at the end of this article, but here are a few things to consider.

Give to many, not to a few

Every time a struggling farmer or family is featured in the media, there is a flurry of offers of money and help.

Cassandra McLaren, who runs the drought support Facebook page One Day Closer to Rain, said when one individual or family was the beneficiary of generosity, it could have unintended consequences for others who were quietly doing it tough.

"They're distressed because it's like, 'But we're all struggling, why is one person being singled out? We need people to help all of us'," she said.

Rural Aid Australia chief executive Charles Alder said it could also work the other way - those who suddenly received big donations often felt guilty and it could affect their relationships with neighbours.

"It makes it very hard for one farming family who have been endowed with lots of gifts and assistance and their next door neighbours have got nothing, so that's very challenging," he said.

"We've actually had a number of those families who have said to us 'Can you help us distribute the assistance to other families?'"

Give to a registered charity

Mr Alder said his key piece of advice to people wanting to donate to drought relief was to give to a registered charity.

"There are a number of people out there who are fundraising who aren't registered charities," he said.

"Sadly there are people who use it as an opportunity to do bad things.

"Please make sure to donate to a charity that is actually doing something in the area."

Cassandra McLaren is the founder of the Facebook page One Day Closer to Rain.(Supplied: Cassandra McLaren )

Ms McLaren had a similar caution regarding crowdfunding and fundraising for individuals.

"The crowdfunding pages take a percentage of the money. So regardless of who it's going to, there's an immediate loss of the amount that is given," she said.

"There is the potential for them to be rorted. You could get an image off the internet, create a story, and share it around and ask people to donate, but it's not actually truthful."

Ms McLaren also recommended that people directed their generosity to registered charities.

"We're supporting Aussie Helpers, Rural Aid, Buy a Bale, Drought Angels, and the Lions Club's Need for Feed, because they're the ones we know on the ground. They generally go anywhere," she said.

It's not only farmers who need help

Rural Adversity Mental Health coordinator Camilla Kenny said people in towns were also having a hard time.

She said people should consider supporting charities that delivered gift or pre-paid cards so the money could be spent in the community.

"It's really, really important to keep in mind that local businesses also provide services and items, so if they're being trucked in from other areas it's actually at the detriment of our local business providers," she said.

"While it's fabulous to receive a hamper of food items and things like that, and people are really appreciative of it, we do just need to keep in mind the impact this is having on local businesses just as much as our farmers."

Photographer Edwina Robertson is travelling across NSW and Queensland taking photos and telling drought stories to raise awareness.(Supplied: Edwina Robertson )

Ms Kenny said cashcard donations also allowed people to spend the money where they needed it.

"So for some people they're able to spend them on fuel to get to town to take their kids to school, or to sporting lessons and things like that."

If you do not want to give to charities, there are other ways to help.

Edwina Robertson usually works as a wedding photographer, but has taken time off to travel around documenting people's drought stories.

Ms Robertson runs the online and social media page One Bucket, which is raising awareness of the drought and has attracted almost 15,000 followers in just three weeks.

She said while all donations went directly to the charities Rural Aid and Drought Angels, there were other ways to help.

"I went to a lady's place the other day, her property, and basically as soon as I arrived she started crying," Ms Robertson said.

"I knew she was so vulnerable, so instead of talking to her and asking her questions, I just actually helped.

"I gave her four hours of my time, and that was enough."

What about people who won't ask for help?

Anne Farr-Hodges, who is a farmer from Baldry in central New South Wales, realised just how much people were looking for advice on how to help when a personal Facebook post she wrote on the issue was shared more than 300 times.

"A lot of people didn't know which charity to go to, and while there's so many good charities out there, I knew of one in our area that was on the ground helping farmers, and that was Aussie Helpers," she said.

But Ms Farr-Hodges said some farmers would not put their hands up for help, and getting to those people was harder.

While she understands the warnings about going around registered charities, she said within communities, sometimes it was necessary.

"People have to register for those charities and the ones who put themselves forward and register are the ones who are going to accept help," she said.

"There's still families out there in the local communities that haven't registered for help. They're too proud, they don't want to accept anything."

Many farmers are struggling to find or buy feed to keep their stock alive.(Supplied: Edwina Robertson )

When Ms Farr-Hodges' post was widely circulated, she had people contacting her wanting to make donations.

If you or anyone you know needs help:

"I find that when it's just sent to them anonymously through the mail, pre-paid vouchers or groceries or whatever ... they don't have a choice to accept it, they don't have a choice to be too proud."

Ms McLaren said while One Day Closer to Rain directed all donation offers to registered charities, the page also facilitated other types of support.

"People are offering to go to a farm and give their time and their energy," she said.

"We've had people suggesting that they can come into their place in town and wash their clothes, or have a shower if they don't have water.

"Those sorts of support we are allowing on the page, because it's in-kind support.

Check out charity credentials

Queensland University of Technology Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies director Wendy Scaife said for people who wanted to donate, there was an easy way to check out the credentials of charities.

It can be done by an online search for the body that regulates charities - the Australian Charities and Not For Profits Commission.

"You can have a look and make sure that it's really an organisation," Dr Scaife said.

"They also have a phone centre so if you have any queries, they're more than happy to take those."

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How can I help? The dos and don'ts of drought donation

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As the severity of the drought starts to hit home with the wider Australian population, more people are asking, "What can I do to help?" There are links to a selection of drought charities at the end of this article, but here are a few things to consider.

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Buy a Bale of Hay, Helping Australian Farmers

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Help Australian Farmers by buying a bale of hay. Please donate to the Buy A Bale campaign, help us make our drought appeal a success.

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While seeing a herd of cows grazing on the pasture seems an iconic country Australian vision, have you ever stopped to consider the history of beef in Australia? Buckle up for a brief history on beef. It's a catchy title, we know.

Where Do Cows Come From?

Cattle descend from the wild European Aurochs. At about 1.5 times the size of modern day cows, Aurochs also had enormous horns and could weigh as much as 1,000 kilos. Humans began domesticating the species about 8,000 years ago, resulting in an animal that has little in common with its heftier brethren. Most of the beef cattle and dairy cow breeds we consume have descended from those same European stock.

When Were They Introduced in Australia?

European settlers arrived in 1788 with a tiny head of cattle. This number rapidly increased during the immediate years after settlement.

By 1900, the beef cattle herds in Australia had risen to over 8.6 million.

The impact of the two World Wars saw the numbers remain at a stable rate, but world beef prices collapsed in the mid-70s, which led to a decline in beef herds. In the mid-90s, an increase in demand led to an explosion in numbers. Currently, there are an estimated 26 million cattle in Australia.

How Has Environmental Farming Changed?

Agriculture, including sheep and beef, has radically changed the Australian landscape. These animals were introduced at a time when sustainable farming practices were not even invented, let alone followed.

Modern farming practices have shifted on their axes, from one of incidental environmental damage to an all out environmentally-friendly approach.

Using ethical and sustainable beef production techniques like those used at Princess Royal Station means that the environment, the consumer, and the animal benefit.

How Important is the Beef Industry in Australia?

Beef farming is one of Australia's primary agricultural industries. It supplies 1% of GDP (gross domestic profit) and is estimated to worth around $8.6 billion. While not the largest world producer of cattle, Australia is in the top ten and we export nearly 1 million tons annually.

Even with our difficult South Australian conditions and climate, we are renowned for producing amazing tasting beef. Princess Royal Station raises some of South Australia's best beef, putting the love and passion they feel about their industry and community right back into the pasture and believes you can taste the results for yourself.

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Cattle descend from the wild European Aurochs. At about 1.5 times the size of modern day cows, Aurochs also had enormous horns and could weigh as much as 1,000 kilos. Humans began domesticating the species about 8,000 years ago, resulting in an animal that has little in common with its heftier brethren.

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Ngurrangga Tours - NYFL - Clinton Walker

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Ngurrangga Tours - NYFL - Clinton Walker - Home

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Ngurrangga Tours - NYFL - Clinton Walker. Clinton started Ngurrangga Tours to educate and immerse people in the ways of his culture and history so that they could understand more about Pilbara Aboriginal culture and country. ​Ngurrangga Tours mostly operates from Karratha and offers visitors a unique experience of the Pilbara through the eyes of a traditional owner.

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Tourism Australia Dundee Super Bowl Ad 2018 w/ Chris Hemsworth and Danny McBride (Extended)

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What's a misconception you want to change?

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What's a misconception you want to change?

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Liam Hemsworth: I Don't Put Shrimp On The Barbie

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The Dundee Returns campaign, launched today in the US during the Super Bowl, marks the biggest spend from Tourism Australia in any single overseas market at $36 million.

The body has a history of iconic advertising, from Paul Hogan saying G'day, to Lara Bingle yelling 'Where the bloody hell are you?'. We take a look at 30 years of tourism ads.
Timeline:
1984 - 1989: Feel the Wonder Down Under
2004 - 2006: Australia. A Different Light
2006 - 2008: A Uniquely Australian Invitation
2008 - 2009: Come Walkabout
2010 - Present: There's Nothing Like Australia

Feel the Wonder Down Under: 1984 - 1989
The first Australian Tourist Commission television commercial featuring Paul Hogan aired on the west coast of the USA in January 1984. Hogan invited Americans to "Come and say G'day" and experience Australia's beaches, outback, cities and relaxed lifestyle, adding the classic line, "I'll slip an extra shrimp on the barbie for you" as well as setting up Australia as the friendliest place in the world.

Responses averaged 1,500 a day and visa applications increased by 40%. The 'Shrimp' advertisement is now recognised as a classic in the world of advertising. Current Tourism Australia CMO Lisa Ronson tells AdNews Hogan put Australia on the map and is the "godfather of Australian tourism".

Australia. A Different Light: 2004 - 2006
'Australia. A different light.' was the first campaign released under the new branding featuring the iconic kangaroo bounding in the sun. It aimed to draw on the link between the light, the land, and life in Australia.

A series of TV ads were launched showing Australia "through the eyes" of individuals including singer Delta Goodrem, commentator and cricketing legend Richie Benaud, poet Les Murray, artists Barbara Weir and Brett Whiteley and media personality Jono Coleman.

A Uniquely Australian Invitation: 2006 - 2008
The campaign was uniquely Australian in tone and character and featured the tagline, "Where the Bloody Hell are you?" which catapulted Lara Bingle into the limelight.

Come Walkabout: 2008 - 2009
In 2008, the Australian writer, producer and director Baz Luhrmann produced a destination campaign which leveraged the release of Australia the movie.

Central to the campaign was the concept of 'walkabout' - a uniquely Australian concept that is steeped in traditional Aboriginal culture.

There's Nothing Like Australia: 2010 - Present
This has been the ongoing slogan for TA's overarching marketing for eight years.

Restaurant Australia - TA has dropped close to $70 million on this campaign since it launched.
It was created in 2015 in response to the growing demand globally for food and wine as part of the travel experience. It looks to close the gap between perceptions of what Australia has to offer and the reality of our world-class food and wine offering.

Aquatic and Coastal - TA has dropped close to $50 million on this campaign
For the first time this 2016 campaign put Australia's coast and water at the centre of a campaign. It was fronted by Chris Hemsworth.
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop me a line at rosiebaker@yaffa.com.au Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day. Need a job? Visit adnewsjobs.com.au.

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Thirty years of Tourism Australia: A history of iconic ads - AdNews

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The Dundee Returns campaign, launched today in the US during the Super Bowl, marks the biggest spend from Tourism Australia in any single overseas market at $36 million. The body has a history of iconic advertising, from Paul Hogan saying G'day, to Lara Bingle yelling 'Where the bloody hell are you?'.

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-not for children viewing (M) classification

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Australia (3/5) Movie CLIP - Stopping the Stampede (2008) HD

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The dangers of the job

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Aerial helicopter mustering in outback Australia I The Feed

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48 SU Biological sciences  The growth and survival of living things are affected by physical conditions of their environment (ACSSU094)
• investigating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ knowledge and understanding of the physical conditions necessary for the survival of certain plants and animals in the environment

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| Year 6 |
| Science understanding
| The growth and survival of living things are affected by physical conditions of their environment |

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SCSA Digital Technologies- if they create SCRATCH mustering game

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SCSA Digital Technologies- if they create SCRATCH mustering game

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Design, modify, follow and represent both diagrammatically, and in written text, simple algorithms (sequence of steps) involving branching (decisions) and iteration (repetition)

Implement and use simple visual programming environments that include branching (decisions), iteration (repetition) and user input

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Trade-offs and impacts of consumer and financial decisions

Choices about the use of resources result from the imbalance of limited resources and unlimited wants (i.e. the concept of scarcity)

Decisions about the alternative use of resources result in the need to consider
trade-offs (e.g. using the land to grow crops or to graze cattle)

The impact consumer purchasing decisions can have on a family, the broader community
(e.g. purchasing from the local growers’ market or a supermarket chain) and the environment

(e.g. pollution, waste)

Businesses provide goods and services in different ways
(e.g. shopping centres, local markets, online stores, small independent stores, remote community stores) to earn revenue

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Self Contained Unit on the Frankenburger

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Self Contained Unit on the Frankenburger

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Where food is produced in Western Australia - food map | Agriculture and Food

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The 'Follow the food trail all over Western Australia' food map can be used as a classroom resource for teaching students about the main types of food produced in different areas of Western Australia. It was developed by the Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia and its Small Landholder Information Service and funded by Royalties for Regions.

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Primary education resources | Agriculture and Food

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The Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia supports the growth of Western Australia's agrifood sector in four key areas: markets, productivity, profitability and people. For schools, links to a range of primary education resources about food and fibre have been compiled for teaching students from years 3-6.

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Mangoes are now one of the major horticultural crops in Australia. Delicious mangoes can be harvested from September through to April in Western Australia due to the wide range of climates.

Kununurra produces the first of the season followed by Broome, Carnarvon and then Gingin. New varieties from the National Mango Breeding Program, in which the Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia has been an important partner, will assist in lengthening the mango season and increase yields.

Mangoes can be grown around Perth, but careful management is necessary as they are susceptible to frost and Pseudomonas, a bacterial disease.

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Mangoes are now one of the major horticultural crops in Australia. Delicious mangoes can be harvested from September through to April in Western Australia due to the wide range of climates. Kununurra produces the first of the season followed by Broome, Carnarvon and then Gingin.

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Information about mango including selection, storage and serving suggestions.

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Automatic fruit picker demonstration by FF Robotics : IFTA 2017

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Agribot For Mango Harvest :: Create the Future Design Contest

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The Create the Future Design Contest was launched in 2002 by the publishers of NASA Tech Briefs magazine to help stimulate and reward engineering innovation. The annual event has attracted more than 14,000 product design ideas from engineers, entrepreneurs, and students worldwide.

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Training your staff how to pick and handle mangoes has just become easier. The mango extension team from the Queensland Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry in Mareeba have developed a training movie, entitled 'Mango picking - how to do it right', that employers can use to train their staff.

Matt Weinert, Senior Development Horticulturist from QDAFF, said that the movie will make life easier for mango growers, packers and labour hire companies.

"The movie is available online and goes for 10 minutes. Because it is free to access, it can be used as many times as people need," he said.

"The movie gives people an overview of all aspects of mango picking, including a range of picking methods, introduces people to damage that can occur during picking and covers workplace health and safety concerns such as mango rash," Mr Weinert said.

The movie was made over the last two years with significant input from growers in the Katherine, Burdekin, Mareeba and Dimbulah regions. It is a part of the Delivering Mango technology (stage 2) project.

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Training video: "Mango Picking - How To Do It Right"

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Training your staff how to pick and handle mangoes has just become easier. The mango extension team from the Queensland Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry in Mareeba have developed a training movie, entitled 'Mango picking - how to do it right', that employers can use to train their s

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(link to HASS ATSI- post colonisation and use of the land)

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Where was the first mango found?

The history of mango began thousands of years ago on the Indian subcontinent where, according to legend, the Buddha was presented with a mango grove so he could rest in the shade. Legend aside, fossil evidence indicates that the mango made its first appearance 25 to 30 million years ago in northeast India, Myanmar and Bangladesh. In these areas mangoes have been grown for more than 4000 years and it was probably here, on the Indian subcontinent, that mangoes were first
cultivated for domestic use.

How did mango spread to other countries?

According to historical reports, mango plants were taken on voyages to Malaya and eastern Asia by Buddhist monks as early as the 4th and 5th centuries BC. Throughout the ages the mango gained popularity and by the tenth century AD Persian traders had taken it to the Middle East and East Africa. With the arrival of the Portuguese in India in the 15th century, it was later spread to South America, the Philippines and to West Africa. By the 1800s, the mango had found its way to Australia where it has been grown ever since. At the present day, mangoes are being cultivated commercially throughout tropical and subtropical areas of Australia and the rest of the world.

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The history of mango began thousands of years ago on the Indian subcontinent where, according to legend, the Buddha was presented with a mango grove so he could rest in the shade. Legend aside, fossil evidence indicates that the mango made its first appearance 25 to 30 million years ago in northeast India, Myanmar and Bangladesh.

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Janine Allis (born 1965) is an Australian businesswoman who is the founder of Boost Juice and part-owner of Retail Zoo, which is the parent company of Boost Juice, Salsa's Fresh Mex Grill and Cibo Espresso.

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Try using bush tucker ingredients in your cooking for delicious native Australian flavour.

1. Aniseed myrtle
This plant has strong aniseed scented and flavoured leaves, which are often used in desserts, sweet sauces and preserves. It also is popular as a scented savoury sauce or marinade for meats and adds a deep, fragrant flavour to salad dressings.
2. Bush tomato (desert raisin)
Dried bush tomato has a strong flavour like a mix of sun dried tomato, caramel and tamarillo, which is delicious in recipes with tomato, cheese or eggs. It also goes well with salmon and stronger flavoured white or game meats, and can be used as a dukkah or crusting for meats. It's a rich source of minerals, particularly potassium, and is high in vitamin C.
3. Cinnamon myrtle
Cinnamon myrtle makes a calming herbal tea that has traditionally been used to aid digestion. It is also used in deserts and sweets, as well as curries, stews and rice dishes. You can also mix it with lemon myrtle and chilli and add to a breadcrumb mix.
4. Lemon myrtle
This is without a doubt the most popular of Australia's native herbs, with its fresh fragrance of creamy lemon and lime. It complements so many culinary delights, from fish and chicken to ice cream or sorbet. Lemon myrtle tea is also uplifting and calming.
5. Mountain pepper and saltbush
Mountain pepper is full of antioxidants and saltbush is rich in vitamin E. Use both as a dry marinade on meats or add them to breads, batter and pastry as a herb mix.

"Lemon myrtle is the most popular of Australia's native herbs, with its fresh fragrance of creamy lemon and lime."

6. Finger limes
These wild fruits are loaded with vitamin C, antioxidants, B vitamins and potassium. Finger lime trees used to grow wild up the Parramatta River in Sydney. They can be used in a variety of dishes, from salads, seafood, pastas and curries to desserts and even cocktails.
7. Davidsons plums
Davidsons plums are a rich source of calcium, Vitamin E and zinc. Although somewhat tart, they are delicious in sauces and jams. In powdered form they can be fabulous in muffins and biscuits.
8. Gumbi gumbi (native apricot)
This is a resilient desert shrub from inland Australia with long, slender leaves, which can be used to make a soothing tea.
9. Kakadu plum
This fruit is very high in vitamin C and is full of antioxidants, folic acid and iron. Harvested only in the Kimberley, the fruit has a low keeping ability, which is why it is either frozen or dried and ground to a powder. The best use of Kakadu plum is in jams, sauces, juices and desserts.
10. Muntries (native cranberry)
These berries are high in antioxidants with up to four times the antioxidants of blueberries. With a sweet, spicy apple flavour, they are wonderful in chutneys and jams. I love to use them in hot cross buns. They are also marvellous when fresh in salads and on cheese platters.

"Wattleseed has a beautiful nutty, mild coffee flavour, and is delicious when used in desserts."

11. Australian native lemongrass
Traditionally used for its calming and soothing effect on digestion and stress, native Australian lemongrass has even been found by scientists to be as effective as aspirin for relieving headaches.
12. Quandongs (wild peach)
Quandongs have long been an important traditional Aboriginal fruit. Although somewhat tart, these fruits are highly nutritious and contain twice the vitamin C of an orange, and are delicious in desserts.
13. River mint
This native herb makes an interesting mint tea, with the taste and aroma of spearmint. Indigenous Australians have also traditionally used it for medicinal purposes, for soothing headaches and the symptoms of a cold.
14. Native Sage
Native sage has a strong mint flavour and goes well with meat dishes and as stuffing. A tea made from native sage has also been traditionally used to help relieve sore throats and coughs.
15. Wattleseed
Wattleseed contains potassium, calcium, iron and zinc in fairly high concentrations. It has a beautiful nutty, mild coffee flavour, and can be mixed with regular coffee for a flavour boost. Wattleseed is also delicious when used to flavour desserts and sweets such as chocolate, cheesecake or meringue.
Learn more about native bush food and buy ingredients at bushfoodshop.com.au

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15 bush tucker ingredients you should know | Live Better

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1. Aniseed myrtle This plant has strong aniseed scented and flavoured leaves, which are often used in desserts, sweet sauces and preserves. It also is popular as a scented savoury sauce or marinade for meats and adds a deep, fragrant flavour to salad dressings. 2.

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This is it. This is the coolest, most exclusive club you'll ever be a part of. It's more glamourous than Mariah Carey's life, it's got more hidden benefits than the Illuminati, and if you download our Boost app then you'll be swimming in free stuff and sweet deals for the rest of your life... or until you lose your card or delete the app.
Teach me more!

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Boost Juice is one of Australia's most famous and loved juice and smoothie brands.

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Place lots of different cut up fruit for kids to taste - get them to sort and classify on a large map of the world- can they see what these fruits need to survive based on their classification? (ATSI) Bush tucker is available

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If Semi Windy Day take out lots of pieces of paper and scatter on oval (count the number) and get the children to collect them all in (try to simulate cattle herding and piece of paper keep blowing away)

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The Crystal Maze (series 1, episode 1) part 6- To the Crystal Dome!

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Download marine education lesson plans and resources suitable for students from Kindergarten to Year 12

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Questacon - The National Science and Technology Centre

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Catching Barramundi

Some groups of Indigenous Australians use traditional fishtraps to catch fish from rivers or creeks. Traps can be made of branches, grass or vines.

Along with the development of the traps, Burarra people also developed the skills and knowledge required to to use them most effectively. Their detailed knowledge of their environment helped them to place the traps in the best place and at the right time of year.

The wet season, when the creeks and billabongs fill with water, is the time to set fishtraps. Early in the wet season the fish swim upstream to breed while towards the end of the season they move downstream to spend the dry season in the larger rivers.

A trap like the one pictured is placed in the water with a fence made of sticks and grass built around it. The only hole in the fence leads into the mouth of the fishtrap which faces the direction the fish are likely to come from. A woven funnel (sitting inside the mouth of the trap) guides fish into the trap, and prevents them from swimming out again. The clever design ensures that only adult fish are caught. Smaller fish can escape though the woven trap, or may even swim back through the funnel entrance. Fish can live in a trap for up to two months.

By untying the end of the trap, fish can be removed without the trap being destroyed. This sustainable design means that the trap can be used many times.

Today, the Burarra people use other ways to catch fish, including spearing, cast nets and fishing lines.

While the ancient fishtrap technology is no longer used, Burarra people are maintaining the skills and knowledge by making traps for sale.

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Catching Barramundi A Fishtrap The diagram shows barramundi being guided to the mouth of the fishtrap by the fences. Diagram by Questacon. Some groups of Indigenous Australians use traditional fishtraps to catch fish from rivers or creeks. Traps can be made of branches, grass or vines.

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In old times people would make these mandjabu (fish traps) to go fishing. They are made with vine we find in the jungle. That old man, Anchor [Gulunba], he showed me how to make these fish traps. I would sit there and watch him making them. We catch barramundi, catfish, all kinds of fish.
Helen Lanyinwanga

Kuninjku people traditionally make two sorts of conical fish traps. One is called mandjabu and is made from a strong, durable vine called milil, and a smaller one is called manylik mandjabu, and made from the grass manylik. The mandjabu conical fish trap is bigger and stronger and used in tidal reaches of creeks to catch large fish. The smaller, lighter manylik trap is used in freshwater flowing creeks to catch smaller fish and freshwater prawns. In earlier times, only men were involved in the construction of the large fish traps, but children would often crawl inside and assist.

To make mandjabu, weavers firstly harvest milil (burney vine, Malaisia scandens) and put it in water overnight to make it soft. Then they start weaving it; they make rings for the inside to keep the fish trap's shape. People also make string from the bark of burdaga (kurrajong) to attach the bardainy (hibiscus) rings and to tie the conical end of the fish trap. It's hard work and it can take three or four weeks to make a fish trap. People also use fish-net fences called kunkarlewabe. They would put the kunkarlewabe across rivers and creeks. In the middle they would place the mandjabu. They also used small things like sticks, rocks, mud and grass to block the fish from going through. This way we would catch fish such as saltwater barramundi rajarra, ngaldadmurrng (freshwater barramundi), small black freshwater catfish (buliya), bonefish (an-guwirrpiya), and sand bass (dalakan) in the mandjabu.

2010

Screen-print

2 screen design, 1000 x 420 mm

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Mandjabu (Fish Trap) | Bábbarra Women's Centre

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In old times people would make these mandjabu (fish traps) to go fishing. They are made with vine we find in the jungle. That old man, Anchor [Gulunba], he showed me how to make these fish traps. I would sit there and watch him making them. We catch barramundi, catfish, all kinds of fish.

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Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

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For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, fishing is as natural and as necessary as breathing. It forms part of the deep cultural and spiritual connection many communities have with their waters and marine resources, whether saltwater or freshwater. Fishing is a matter of cultural practice, and is informed by traditional knowledge.

Today, these long-held traditions have become increasingly challenged. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have been marginalised from both commercial and non-commercial fisheries, and are often denied access to their traditional waters. But across Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander fishers are taking steps to ensure their voices - and values - are heard in fisheries management planning, negotiating catch allowances and controlled access to their waters and marine resources.

While the importance of fishing as a way of life is obvious to many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, there have been few attempts to translate their experiences into a narrative that governments, non-Indigenous fishers and the general public can immediately understand and appreciate.

Through this exhibition, Indigenous people from across Australia tell their story of what fishing means to them.

Fishing activities of Aboriginal people and settlers near Ulladulla, New South Wales, approximately 1885, Mickey of Ulladulla. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, nla.obj-135516869

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For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, fishing is as natural and as necessary as breathing. It forms part of the deep cultural and spiritual connection many communities have with their waters and marine resources, whether saltwater or freshwater. Fishing is a matter of cultural practice, and is informed by traditional knowledge.

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How is sound used to locate fish?

Some systems are especially designed to locate fish. These systems use the same basic principle as other sonar systems - they transmit sound pulses, measure the time it takes for echoes to return, and calculate the distance to the objects. (See Sonar).

Fish finding sonar units send and receive signals many times per second. They concentrate sound into a beam that is transmitted from a transducer. These units include visual displays that print the echoes. The bottom appears as a continuous line drawn across the display. In addition, any objects that are in the water between the surface and the bottom may also be displayed.

Fish finders detect the presence of fish primarily by detecting the air in their swim bladders. The air conserved in the swim bladder changes the sound path and reflects energy back. The fish finder detects this reflected energy and converts it into fish images on the screen.

Fish finders operate at high frequencies of sound, approximately 20-200 kHz (20-200,000 cycles per second). This helps define targets and can even display two fish as two separate echoes or arches. (See How is sound used to identify fish?). Lower frequencies (i.e. 50 kHz) can penetrate deeper waters but may not be able to define individual targets. Putting more energy into the pulse sent out by the transducer increases the probability of getting a signal to return in deeper water.

Images are formed on the visual display as arches due to the movement of the boat or the fish. When sound is transmitted from the transducer it is concentrated into a beam. As the sound passes into deeper water, the beam spreads out and covers a wider area. If the transmitted sound were plotted, it would look like a traffic cone with a pointed top and a broad base.

Fish that swim within this cone may reflect some of the sound back to the transducer. The reflected sound, or echo, appears on the sonar's chart display. A school of fish will appear as many different shapes or formations, depending on how much of the school is within the transducer's cone. Individual fish, especially those in deeper water, may appear as arches on the display. The following illustrations demonstrate how a fish arch forms as the fish moves through the sonar beam.

A fish arch forms as the fish moves through the sonar beam. A mark appears on the chart display (on right) when the fish enters the outer edge of the cone. As the fish swims through the cone, the distance between the transducer and the fish decreases, and the mark begins to curve up. When the fish is at the center of the beam it is directly beneath the transducer. The mark begins to flatten out as the fish reaches its closest point to the transducer. As the fish continues to move through the beam to the opposite end of the cone, the distance increases. The mark begins to curve downward because the fish is moving further and further away from the transducer. An arched mark appears as the chart display graphs this distance change.

Additional Links on DOSITS

Additional Resources

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How is sound used to locate fish? Some systems are especially designed to locate fish. These systems use the same basic principle as other sonar systems - they transmit sound pulses, measure the time it takes for echoes to return, and calculate the distance to the objects. (See Sonar).

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As populations in Australia and around the world grow, so too does the demand for sustainable sources of seafood. Seafood demand in Australia has increased considerably over the last three decades. Currently, Australia's consumer demand for seafood exceeds the supply from domestic production and continues to grow.

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STEM Engineering Process Posters - FREE!!!

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Download this STEM poster set for FREE!!! Each poster contains one of the steps in the Engineering Process along with a cute "monster" illustration. I hope you enjoy these posters! Please also check out the STEM Activity Challenges in my store!! Thank you :-) Science Demo Guy Store STEM Activity Ch...

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Developed by Foodbank WA as a nutrition education resource for primary school aged children, the characters aim to empower students to make healthy lifestyle choices. Superhero Foods provide a fresh approach to teaching students about nutrition and cooking using key messages and themes linked to the current guidelines promoted in the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating.

Everyday foods that are inexpensive, nutritious and readily available can be "Superhero Foods". The inspiration behind Superhero Foods is we don't need to eat fancy, expensive foods to enjoy good health. A storyline has been developed to enable the dissemination of the Superhero Foods concept. Everyday Foods which live in Healthy Town transform into their Superhero Foods alias to battle the body monsters Decay, Illness and Obesity and Zombie food characters which represent discretionary or extra foods. Thirty six food characters have been developed so far, to represent all five core food groups (i.e., fruit, vegetables, breads and cereals, meat/protein and dairy foods).

Examples of Superhero Foods key messages

You are what you eat

Choose Superhero Foods

Zombie Foods invite the body monsters into our bodies

Everyday Foods are Superhero Foodsin disguise

Eat Superhero Foodsfor a strong mind and healthy body

For more information about the Superhero Foods concept, please visit www.superherofoodshq.org.au

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Developed by Foodbank WA as a nutrition education resource for primary school aged children, the characters aim to empower students to make healthy lifestyle choices. Superhero Foods provide a fresh approach to teaching students about nutrition and cooking using key messages and themes linked to the current guidelines promoted in the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating.

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With the support of Foodbank, we have recently incorporated the newer Superhero Food resources into our Food Sensations sessions. We were extremely impressed by the quality of the resources provided, including their suitability for engaging school aged children, who responded extremely well to the concept of "Superhero vs Zombie" Foods. In particular, the corresponding activities and aptly named recipes such as "noodle ninja mince' were successful in engaging student's interest in cooking and nutrition.

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Home - Superhero Foods HQ by Foodbank WA

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With the support of Foodbank, we have recently incorporated the newer Superhero Food resources into our Food Sensations sessions. We were extremely impressed by the quality of the resources provided, including their suitability for engaging school aged children, who responded extremely well to the concept of "Superhero vs Zombie" Foods.

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Embrace some non-traditional learning methods with our collection of educational online games. Get students to play each game as part of a corresponding unit lesson, or simply share them for a fun (yet informational!) afternoon activity. Jimmy's Thirsty Just how good is your students' hydration knowledge?

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Get Healthy is a free confidential coaching service that helps adults make lifestyle changes for better health.

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Make It Count is for educators working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learners in mathematics education. It is a teaching and learning resource, and a professional learning tool.

Make It Count is about a way of thinking - and a way of doing.

It offers pathways, possibilities and ideas for schools and professional learning communities to make their own inroads and innovations into improving mathematics and numeracy learning outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learners.

Use the menus in the side-bar to explore the site or click on the following icons:

This resource is based on the work of eight clusters of schools throughout regional and urban Australia. These cluster spent 2009-2012 developing programs and practices to improve the mathematics outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

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With funding from the Australian Government, the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers Inc. has established this four year project to develop an evidence base of practices that improve Indigenous students learning in mathematics and numeracy. Eight clusters of schools have been established in metropolitan and regional locations around the country.

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Bring in some fishing rods and get the children to maybe hook on bait? Create a fish using recycled materials- discuss effect of plastic on our oceans

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These devices can be used as a hook to engage the children in fruit and vegetables and technology.

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Year 2 Healthy Winners, Healthy Grinners

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to use as the Hook to project

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Fun365 | Craft, Party, Wedding, Classroom Ideas & Inspiration

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Fun365 brings you inspired fun made easy. Find and shop thousands of creative projects, party planning ideas, classroom inspiration and DIY wedding projects.

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JewishKids.org Holidays High Holidays Rosh Hashanah Children's Crafts and Coloring Pages

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Once you get beyond the sounds of the four elderly ladies and their crowbars in the dirt, out of range of their colorful dresses, the outback looks the same in every direction: flat, scrubby, semi-arid, the earth cracked and full of new green after the recent rain. And no sign of a road or car.

I keep a sort of intuitive compass, which eventually reveals Wendy's white car through a gap in the acacias off to the left. The doors and trunk are open. I rummage for a plastic can and return to the others.

Now I am enjoying the mild discomfort of not quite knowing where to go. I can feel my senses open, noticing broken branches and crushed nightshades where we set out, the angle of the sun, the direction of the dry riverbed. I come across the yawakiyi tree Ruth showed me on the way out - it is late for them but there are still a few sweet black berries, warm in the sun, with one big seed and a thick pasty flesh, like wheatgrass and dark sugar. From here the desert fuschia spread out in wayward curves and lines. Their crimson blooms last for a brief time after rain, holding a drop of clear, fragrant nectar in the small bulb at the base of the petals below the ovary. I remember Coral picking the flowers and sucking on them as we walked.

"They usually build a nest near the or the where the branches curve down, because when the rains come and the flowers come out, that's where they get food."

"Just like us," I say, following Coral's lead, picking the tender blossoms and sucking out the ambrosia. I stop to take notes and a picture. Andreas, our filmmaker, comes up behind. "Taste this," I say, picking him one intact. We stood, mouths agape, stupefied. Coral was already back on the hunt. She wandered with a purpose, then sat, observed, and waited. Then she got back up and resumed.

None of these women, nor any of their community, can get lost here - orientation to their land and to each other is fundamental to their living. Knowledge of cardinal directions is imbued into them from birth, just as I gained "left" and "right".

Now I'm standing by myself, still entranced by the single drops, and the mild vegetal flavor and springy texture of the flower itself.

After picking my way through the miinypa, I catch sight of Ruth's pink and blue in the scrub off to the left, and hear Tess's cackle above the sounds of digging. What a group we've found. They're all between their sixties and nineties. Coral, the eldest, is a great-grandmother.

"I got it," I say to Tess, coming up to the camp, holding out the plastic container. "Yeah, that's good, we found another, too." There is now a decent-sized hole with a corresponding pile of red dirt. Ben and Coral sit on the other side of the hole observing, Andreas is up filming, and Ruth has found a shady spot not far off.

We're in the desert outside Yuendumu, a town of a few hundred people three hours northwest of Alice Springs. We are in Warlpiri country to learn about the insects of the Australian desert. Wendy, our contact at the local school, has rounded up her friends, some of whom also paint at the arts centre where we're staying, to take us out honey-anting.

"Do you think we should find some soon?" Wendy asks Tess, who has taken charge of the digging, methodically loosening shards of earth with her long iron crowbar, the tool of choice around these parts.

"Oh, yes, there are some here, we will find them," says Tess, switching out crowbar for bucket to lift up excess earth. I get in there, on my knees, to scoop out the rest with my hands. We found the site by tracking some of the worker ants with yellow stripes on their abdomens to the nest, right next to a small desert fuschia.

I'm thinking of all the flavors we have already tasted in the desert today. "What do the honey ants taste like to you, Tess?"

"They taste like different things. If they eat manja, the honey is light. If they eat miinypa, the honey is darker. But they are all sweet!"

We have seen some of the yellow flowers of the manja - also called mulga, a type of acacia (Acacia aneura). But the miinypa, the desert fuschia (Eremophila gilesii), is really out in bloom.

"Aha!" shouts Tess, and the site is alive as she begins lifting the first specimens out of the hole. The honey ants are also known as "repletes" or "plerergates," designated worker ants that are fed nectar in times of plenty until their abdomens engorge and they become living larders. In times of scarcity, the workers induce them to regurgitate some of the concentrated energy stored in their swollen bodies. They hang in long chambers called galleries, tended to by other workers and moved up or down based on the moisture in the soil. This is also why it is easier to find them after a rain - because the workers move them higher in the hive to prevent them being drowned in the rising groundwater, which means only about a one-metre dig instead of three.

Once we have a few, we ask Tess to show us how she eats them. She takes one gently but swiftly by the head, and sucks out the dark liquid from the back. She puts the body with its collapsed abdomen back down on the soil, and it starts to scramble back down into the hole. It is unclear how long, or even whether, it will survive the ordeal.

Ben and I each take one up. The moment I touch the end of the abdomen to my tongue, I am struck with an electric, trigeminal sensation, even before rupturing the golden orb. I don't know why, but it's exciting. Then I suck. It takes a surprising amount of force to break something so small, but once that threshold is met, the membrane bursts and the contents rush and coat the inside of my mouth in a living wave of ancient pleasure. It is indeed like a dark honey, sweet but also sour, with a lingering flavor like wild strawberries, semi-dried in the sun. And they all taste different.

Tess keeps hauling them up. Ruth has come over from her shade, Wendy is getting in there, even Andreas puts the camera aside for a taste. We maybe find 20 or 25 in all, and this, Tess assures us, is a small harvest. Sometimes, they will fill a whole pail, especially if the children aren't along for the trip. What I keep thinking about is the connection between the clear, delicate, floral nectar of the desert fuschia and the dark, rich, sour honey it is transformed into as part of the ants' life process.

We make our way back to Wendy's car to continue the hunt. We head to another area, a place called Yurrampi Jukurrpa, or, roughly translated, "Honey Ant Dreaming." Huge round boulders form hills that rise abruptly out of the flat landscape. Here we find bushes and bushes full of marnikiji, small oval berries deep purple in color with small white speckles. They are brighter than the yawakiyi, springy and fruity when fresh. I also find some that have begun to shrivel on the plant, almost like raisins, with an intense, guava-like taste. I collect with Tess. She tells me about her mother and how she taught her how to gather fruits like the yawakiyi and marnikiji and insects like the honey ants, as well as many other plants and animals. She is trying to keep these foods in her children's diet, too.

As we head back toward the car and the sun dips lower towards the honey ants, I am still mulling over the replete and the fuschia. They make so much sense together and I want to bring them together on a plate. How beautiful and simple a dessert it would be - the clear, light sweetness of the nectar, the deep round sweetness of the ant honey, tempered by its own acidity and the fragrance and vegetal bitterness of the flower. Maybe a few of the berries we found as a garnish. I am kicking myself for not making this connection earlier, when the ingredients were available and plentiful. Who knows if we will ever have them again, let alone together?

I look back towards the bouldered hills falling into their own shadow, the honey ant monoliths stalking the horizon. Earlier, Tess told me these are the honey ants. It was not a gesture of likeness but a confirmation of identity. They are the same ones we dug up and ate. It does not matter that the former are small and the latter large, the first liquid and the later solid, that they are a 45-minute drive apart. Their matters differ, as do their scales, but their essential form connects them inextricably in time and place.

Tess tapped into these relationships through stories learned from her parents and grandparents, filled in with her own experience. I can't pretend to understand the Warlpiri concept of "Jukurrpa" in any profound way, but I think I understand enough to know that "Dreaming" or "Dreamtime," which imply unconsciousness and mystery, don't really get at the heart of it. Wendy's husband Frank suggested something more like "cosmology" - a rich, intricate and highly ordered system of stories, emerging in the landscape and used to make sense of the world.

Something clicks as we come back into town, and I start to notice the yurrampi on murals and signs where I didn't before. We drop off the ladies of our crew and say goodbye as the sun hovers above the flatness. I stare into the sideways light and what Tess shared with me unlocks a cascade of possibilities.

It dawns on me that in fact I have already eaten the dish I so desperately dream of making and am frustrated I cannot.

When we spend time with communities around the world to investigate the role of insects in their cuisine, we bring along a host of our own assumptions - for example, when we try to learn recipes in which the insects are "elaborated" in some way. In some cultures this concept works. But maybe 'elaboration' in the Australian desert region is not about "making a dish" as a mixture of ingredients brought together on a plate. It is a different type of gastronomic context altogether. The honey ants are never cooked - they are eaten immediately or saved for later feasting, but always eaten live and on their own.

And what could be done to make them better than they already are? "Making a dish" here, like connecting the honey ants in the nest and the honey ants on the hills to the fuschia and the mulga and the berries of the desert, involves eating in succession, the eating that happens over time. Maybe the gastronomic context of this place unfolds more in time, rather than what comes together at once on a plate or a hand. This is fundamentally different from how many of us today conceive of eating. Yet it is a big part of how Aboriginal communities have been eating on this continent for tens of thousands of years, and we would do well to pay attention.

In this sense, then, I have already eaten the dish. And it has sparked a larger conversation for us on the temporal elements of dishes and menus that maybe we aren't paying close enough attention to: how a dish changes and can be made to change over time; how a menu evolves and can be guided to evolve, both over one service and over many; how a dish can be constructed outside the bounds of a single plate. And even more importantly, it reminds us how gastronomy does not just happen in restaurants and at dining tables, but also in immersion in one's surroundings. It is doubtful that the honey ants and fuschias would ever be as delicious than when eaten straight from the nest or the plant, even if brought together. The same is true of many things.

Yet still, I dream of the honey ants and desert fuschia together in time, the nectar and the replete that it feeds. I've eaten it already and I never will.
Many thanks to our honey-anting crew of Wendy Baarda, Coral Kelake, Ruth Napaljarri Stewart, and Tess Napaljarri Ross for the delicious and wise guidance, and to Frank Baarda, Cecilia Alfonso and the Warlukurlangu Artists of Yuendumu for their time and interest and help.

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Nordic Food Lab: On the Hunt for Honey Ants in the Australian Outback

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Once you get beyond the sounds of the four elderly ladies and their crowbars in the dirt, out of range of their colorful dresses, the outback looks the same in every direction: flat, scrubby, semi-arid, the earth cracked and full of new green after the recent rain.

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Noongar people

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Aboriginal languages, clans and dialects plus the Honey Bee dance.mp4

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Honeypot ants, also called honey ants, are ants which have specialized workers ( repletes, plerergates, or rotunds) that are gorged with food by workers to the point that their abdomens swell enormously. Other ants then extract nourishment from them. They function as living larders.

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Share the love at Christmas with beautiful hand-made baked goodies as gifts.

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Learn About Egg Farming: An Egg's Journey From Farm To Kitchen

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Australians consume 15 million eggs every day! But how well do you know the journey of an egg from a farm all the way to your kitchen table?

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All about chickens for kids and teachers. Also includes free worksheets, crafts, stories and songs

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How Butter is Made - Butter | Dairy Goodness

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Learn the traditional way of making butter and find out how Canadian butter is produced.

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Probably a bit tricky for little ones to watch but good idea of the process

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Discover Design and technologies with 100 curriculum-linked videos

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Watch How to make beautiful burger pancakes for breakfast, trick your parents with a coffee spill prank, and make an epic homemade lava lamp..

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Access and share curriculum-linked movies and documentaries from Australian television.

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The Gingerbread Man Boat STEM Activity and Prompt Card Pack

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Challenge the children to build a boat to help the Gingerbread Man across the river. The resource includes details of what you will need, as well as step by step instructions on how to carry out the activity. There is also a handy prompt card to promote discussion.

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Taste test different Gingerbread?
Happy Mrs Chicken game on iPad.
Gingerbread smelling Playdough.

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Bakery - Fresh Delightful Bread | Bakers Delight AU

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Bakery franchise. Bread range, recipes, store locator, franchise information, and job opportunities included.

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*This post contains Amazon affiliate links.*

OK, so have you guys heard about the cronut?

This croissant-donut hybrid has been taking the interwebs by storm over the last few weeks.

Created by pastry chef Dominique Ansel of the eponymous New York City bakery, this morsel has gotten so much attention that Ansel went out and trademarked the name. That's Ansel behind the counter, second from the right.

But...at a hefty $5 a pop, is the cronut all that it's cracked up to be? Or is it another monstrous piece of hype that looks great online but just doesn't hold up in person?

Mad love to Jennifer Novak, Cronut Tester Extraordinaire!

Jennifer Novak, longtime reader of The Hungry Mouse, offered to check it out for us while she was in Manhattan this weekend. (Thanks SO much for braving the line!) Jennifer is a professional Zumba student, and one of the nicest people we've met online.

So what's the story with the cronut?

Here's what Jennifer thought. (Want a hint? Sounds like cronuts might be Wolverine approved.)

"My very first thought when I woke up this morning was, 'I want a cronut!'

Alas, I am back at home. . .

Here's my experience. I'm honored to be able to report for The Hungry Mouse.

I got to the bakery just about 9 am on Sunday. The line was out the door. Fortunately, I was only #21 in line!

I ordered two cronuts, all in the name of research, of course.

The cronut was exactly how it sounds.

Rich, flaky layers of dough that were whisper thin and could be pulled apart easily like a croissant but also a yummy greasy, sugary, fried taste that was reminiscent of freshly fried dough you would get at a county fair.

In between the layers of the cronut was the most delicious cream. The closest thing I could compare it to is the filling of a Boston cream pie donut, but much fresher, lighter and airier. I could eat a vat of that cream. It was also a bit like British clotted cream-sweet and light. It was like eating little bites of sweet air!

The cronut had a lavender frosting piped on it. I was not crazy about that. It was already very sweet, and this extra bit seemed a bit too much.

I talked to the people next to me, and they all remarked the lavender frosting put it over the top.

It was very good. I loved the way the layers could be pulled apart. It was a delicacy.

I also tried some homemade Madelaines and the DKA, another house specialty. (Editor's note: The DKA is a flaky, croissant-sounding creature with a crunchy, caramelized crust.)

All so yummy!

One added note: In the 20 or so minutes that I sat there, ate my cronuts, and drank tea, they sold out! There were a lot of unhappy people.

Oh, and I saw a movie star. It was Hugh Jackman, I think. . . I know he lives in the neighborhood. My friend lives in his building. There were lots of beautiful people there. I'm 99% sure it was him. Or else he has a clone.

Clearly, a place to see and be seen!"

Get your own cronut

Sounds like the cronut really is all that it's cracked up to be, right? It's nice when something lives up to its reputation. Especially in bakery land. I'm definitely a believer.

189 Spring Street
New York, NY 10012

(212) 219-2773

What do you think?

Worth $5? That's a lot for a souped up donut, but they look pretty darned good to us.

Many thanks again to Jennifer for reporting for us.

Now, to try to figure out how to replicate this little baby at home...
*All images copyright of Jennifer Novak, and are used by permission.

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OK, so have you guys heard about the cronut? This croissant-donut hybrid has been taking the interwebs by storm over the last few weeks. Created by pastry chef Dominique Ansel of the eponymous New York City bakery, this morsel has gotten so much attention that Ansel went out and trademarked the name.

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Google owns YouTube. Therefore you advertise on YouTube using the Google AdWords network. As with any other type of Google AdWords campaign, the price of YouTube ads involves you bidding for ad placement. Therefore it is impossible to say how much YouTube ads cost definitively.

We have previously looked at YouTube ads from the YouTubers' point of view in How To Make Money On YouTube. This post focuses on YouTube from an advertiser's point of view.

YouTube ads have an average cost-per-view of $0.10 - $0.30, and the views that you generate will count towards your overall YouTube viewer count.

The average cost of reaching 100,000 viewers is around $20.000.

Summary: YouTube Ad formats, Targeting and Bidding

Why Would You Advertise on YouTube?

YouTube has a huge following - indeed it enjoys more than 1.5 million logged-in monthly users. They watch YouTube on mobile devices for more than one hour a day on average. With the current popularity of Smart T.V.s, there has also been a rapid rise in watching YouTube on television sets.

It is also hard to ignore the fact that the YouTube search engine is second only to Google when it comes to search use.

With the power of Google AdWords behind it, it should be no surprise that YouTube is now a favorite medium for advertisers worldwide.

The only difficulty from a budgeting perspective is that there is no explicit price rate for YouTube ads cost. However, this is not any different from many other types of online advertising. The general rule online seems to be that you bid for advertising space and the highest bidder is typically accepted.

Ad Formats to Consider

YouTube offers a variety of ad formats. These include:

Display ads - these appear to the right of the feature video, above the video suggestions list - on the desktop platform only.

Overlay ads - these are semi-transparent overlay ads that appear on the lower 20% of your video - on the desktop platform only. These can be either image or text ads

Skippable video ads - the most common type of YouTube ad. These are the ads you see before during or after a video which a viewer can skip after 5 seconds

Non-skippable video ads - these are video ads that viewers must watch before they can view the main video. There is an extended version, with 30-second ads, but YouTube is about to phase these out due to their unpopularity. Non-skippable videos are more typically 15-20 seconds in length.

Bumper ads - these are non-skippable videos up to 6 seconds which a viewer must watch before seeing the main video

Sponsored Cards - these provide content relevant to the video, for example, products featured in the main video

The video ads are sometimes called TrueView video ads. YouTube has simplified their ad naming recently. They have split their ad types into TrueView in-stream ads and TrueView video discovery ads.

The in-stream ads are those that appear as part of videos, i.e., the skippable and non-skippable video ads, and bumper ads. The video discovery ads, as the name suggests, are those ads that you use to help people discover your videos, mainly display and overlay ads.

In simple terms, you pay for a TrueView in-stream ad when somebody watches at least 30 seconds of your ad (unless it is shorter). You pay for a TrueView video discovery ad when somebody clicks on your ad thumbnail.

By far the most popular ad is the Skippable video ad. While non-skippable ads may sound lucrative to advertisers, they are unpopular with users.

Display Ads

Display ads can be less popular with advertisers because they do not encroach on the videos people watch. However, they can still generate positive results for your advertising campaign. As I referred to above, YouTube contains the world's second largest search engine. This means these ads can act as an alternative to advertising on Google if you operate in a competitive niche.

If you promote a video here, you could end up paying a rate as low as 3 cents per view.

If you can determine the phrases in your niche that people regularly search for, you could create a video to match that phrase, promoting that video in a display ad. By doing that, your ads will appear as relevant to the searchers as other feature videos on YouTube.

The idea is to create videos that meet the needs of the searchers and then promote them with display ads.

Overlay Ads

Overlay ads are a great way to drive traffic to your own YouTube channel or website. For this to work on your YouTube channel, you first need to populate it with engaging, entertaining videos. You would also want to create a compelling welcome video to encourage people to stay the moment they clicked through to your channel.

Naturally, you can create overlay image ads that appear on anybody's videos. You can gain added value, however, if they click through to your channel.

Skippable Video Ads

You only pay for those skippable videos that viewers watch for 30 seconds or more (unless your ad is shorter than that). So, you do not have to worry about paying for all those people who skip through your video as soon as they can.

This keeps costs down, but of course, you will not gain any benefit unless some people watch your ad, click through and then buy your product.

This makes accurate targeting very important for your ads.

Bumper Ads

Businesses use bumper ads when they want to deliver a short, memorable message to potential customers. As they are six seconds or shorter they need to be to the point.

You pay for bumper ads by impressions. They are charged by CPM - cost per thousand impressions. Hence you pay for a bumper ad each time your ad receives 1,000 impressions.

Targeting Your Video Ads

You will find a Targets tab for each of your video campaigns. It works similarly to how you would target different types of people when you buy AdWords in Google Search.

You use the Targets tab to narrow down the types of people to whom YouTube will serve your video ad.

To keep your YouTube ads cost down, but at the same time ensure that you receive enough clicks to make your campaign worthwhile, you will need to target only the correct people to see your ad.

The more targeting options you choose, the tighter your target will be. Two to three targeting options should be sufficient for most target groups.

You want to think in terms of keywords. What terms will your target audience likely use when they search for YouTube videos?

The more you monitor this, the less unnecessary expense you will have from people watching your videos but not being a likely person to go any further through the funnel.

At a high-level, if you sell a product aimed at middle-aged men, you will want to avoid targeting video search terms most commonly used by teenage girls. If you are targeting elderly women, you would have no interest in your ad appearing on any of PewDiePie's videos, for instance.

You will want to include both positive keywords to focus on, and negative keywords to avoid.

You also should look at other targeting demographics. If you only sell your product in one country, you need to avoid advertising to the rest of the world. Similarly, you may want to limit your ad to countries where the majority of people speak English.

Your videos may be entertaining, but you do not want people watching them through who are never likely to buy your products.

Creating Your Video Ad

Businesses often find that video creation can comprise the highest proportion of YouTube video cost. This does, of course, depend on the level of sophistication and professionalism you are aiming for with your video ad.

If your video is low quality, then people will skip it at the 5-second point. A low-quality video does not reflect well on your brand, either.

It depends on the expectations of your target audience. Some firms can get away with a $5,000 home-made video. Others will look shabby unless they spend $100,000 and employ professional actors, crew and production values.

The more creative you can be with your video ad, the less reason there is for the viewer to rush to the Skip Ad button.

Remember that YouTube is not the same as broadcast t.v. A live tv viewer does not have a SkipAd button. While you may think you can save money by reusing your television ads, you are likely also to be foregoing income, with people choosing to bypass your ad.

The only exception is when you manage to create a cult ad. A few firms can upload their ads to YouTube as video creations, rather than paid advertisements. For instance, Air New Zealand has gained a reputation for their quirky safety videos. As such they do not to pay to advertise on YouTube. They have a thriving channel, where people search for their latest safety videos.

Of course, many of these videos are high-budget productions, including videos made by international film producer, Sir Peter Jackson, director, Taika Waititi, and some of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings cast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOw44VFNk8Y
If you only have a small budget for video production (and don't have famous friends to help you), you need to try a different approach to video production. You will probably have to learn to be comfortable in front of the camera.

YouTube does have tools to help you with your video production. They even have a scheme called Director Onsite to help businesses make professional videos. This project is currently under review and will be modified in early 2018.

Bidding

The key to the level of your YouTube ads costs is the need to bid on ad placement. You are not given any set price for advertising on YouTube

You set yourself a daily budget of what you are prepared to pay for your YouTube advertising. Most businesses allow at least $10 per day for their YouTube advertising campaigns, and then raise this once they have experimented with various options. You only pay when somebody engages with your ad in some way. Perhaps they watch your skippable ad for 30 seconds, or they click on a Call to Action on a display ad.

Make sure that you do your targeting before you set your bidding options. The bidding suggestions that YouTube makes change as you alter your targeting.

In most cases, you bid by CPV - cost per view. This means that you are willing to pay up to your bid figure for each view (of 30 seconds or longer).

You will also set a maximum figure you are willing to pay per day. This ensures that you do not receive any nasty surprises should you find that more people watch your ads than you anticipated.

You will be asked to bid a Max Cost Per View. YouTube will give you a typical range of bids - these will, of course, depend on how much you have limited your audience in your targeting.

If you click on "Customize Bids Per Format," you can split your bids separately for "In-Display" or "In-stream". If you are more interested in "In-stream" advertising, bid more for this statistics than you do for "In-Display."

YouTube gives you a projection of your predicted views/day for in-search, in-display, and in-stream. If these numbers do not match your intentions, you need to go back to your bids and adjust accordingly.

It will give you a predicted average CPV.

Optimization of Your YouTube Campaigns

Ultimately, your concern should not so much be about how much your YouTube Ads cost, but about what level of return you can earn from your YouTube advertising cost. This means that you need to keep an eye on your campaigns and then adapt them at regular intervals, to optimize their performance.

Neil Patel covers this in detail in How to Optimize a YouTube Ad Campaign. He shows how Gatorade managed to earn $13.50 for every $1 they spent on their YouTube ads.

The key to optimizing your YouTube campaign is reviewing your campaign statistics and understanding what they are telling you. The most important stats are the View Rate of your ads and the Click-through Rate. These stats show you whether people find your ads compelling and whether they are working as a campaign.

The most common problem is that your videos are not compelling enough. Although some firms give up at this point and write YouTube off as a marketing option, a better choice is to revamp your videos to make more compelling content.

Alternatively, you could select suitable influencers to work with, allowing them to create compelling content that highlights your product.

Sometimes your problem may be lack of exposure. This may be because opposition companies have outbid you for the best advertising positions. You could experiment by bidding higher, and then observing how your ads perform with a higher exposure.

You will find that you will often obtain the best overall results by being willing to increase the amount you are prepared to pay for your YouTube advertising. Skimping on costs may harm your overall ROI and bottom line.

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Google owns YouTube. Therefore you advertise on YouTube using the Google AdWords network. As with any other type of Google AdWords campaign, the price of YouTube ads involves you bidding for ad placement. Therefore it is impossible to say how much YouTube ads cost definitively.

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How do hunters bake their bread?

The First Australians were iconic hunters. An extreme theory makes them even responsible for exterminating giant prehistoric animals. Yet, they spent a good part of their time baking bread.

Sure, this was bush bread, resembling damper in method and pita or Egyptian bread in its form. Ethnographic and archaeological evidence show the baker's tradition well entrenched in Aboriginal cultures, especially in the arid regions, which make up about three quarters of the country.

In Central Australia, for example, native millet ( Panicum) and spinifex ( Triodia) were commonly used, supplemented by wattle-seed. Elsewhere pigwig ( Portulaca oleracea), prickly wattle ( Acacia victoriae), mulga ( Acacia aneura), dead finish seed ( Acacia tetragonophylla) and bush bean ( Rhyncharrhena linearis) were mixed into flour.

Reliance on the seeds became more pronounced in the Holocene - the recent, post-ice-age period - but some archaeological sites, such as Cuddie Springs contain grinding stones dated to about 30,000 years. These stones were used to grind wild seeds into flour which in turn was baked as bread. They were and continue to be found in large numbers on numerous Aboriginal sites across the country.

But the reliance on seeds required an ample investment of labour and forward planning that would challenge our superficial idea of the 'nomadic' way of life.

However, humans cannot digest most of the raw seeds. So, they need to be mechanically crushed to small particles (flour) and cooked, and only then can we absorb their nourishing matter.

Women and children would spend a large part of a day collecting seeds, often very small, to provide a meal for the family. Separating seeds from the husks and winnowing would take considerable skills and practice.

Grinding seeds into flour on the large stone slab (grindstone) was a hard physical task that would take about two hours to produce about a half kilogram of flour. Bread-cakes were baked in the ashes or on the hot charcoal of a campfire.

The use of seeds in this form required not only suitable equipment but advance planning and indeed constant provisioning of seed-grinding tools. For grinding hard seeds into flour the large oval slabs of sandstone were essential. It's estimated they could last for up to 9 years, but grinding stones needed to be provided for each adult women on each major campsite, possibly four or five, used frequently in a cycle of coming and going by the local group in its homeland.

Bread was made, on average, 90 days a year in arid regions. The grindstone's surface would get smooth and need to be roughed by gently dressing with a hammer. A combination of grinding and dressing would eventually make the slab too thin for further use.

Such slabs, often weighing nearly 30kg could not be found anywhere. They were carefully cut from the quarries and shaped nearby to reduce their bulk before the long journey home. The outcrops of suitable materials for grinding stones are relatively rare, so obtaining the slabs often involved long travels and complex negotiations or other arrangements with the group on whose land the quarry was located.

This was men's major contribution to a benefit of 'daily bread' and the most compelling illustration that feeding family was not a lucky chance but systematic, well-planned labour, supplemented by technical knowledge, specialised equipment and complex maintenance of, what we would call, infrastructure.

Essentially the same technology of making flour was used in all civilisations, until the water and windmill constructed a little before the beginning of the Common Era made this job a lot easier. Yet, in many poor communities, the hand-milling of seeds persisted for many more centuries.
Additional Information:
A number of grinding-stone quarries are known from the north of South Australia and Central Australia, some only recently studied in a systematic manner.

M A Smith, I McBryde and J Ross. 2010. The economics of grindstone production at Narcoonowie quarry, Strzelecki Desert. Australian Aboriginal Studies 2010/1: 92-99.

Recently the starch grains were identified on 30,000 year old grinding stones from three Palaeolithic sites across Europe: Bilancino II in Italy, Kostenki 16 in Russia, and Pavlov VI in the Czech Republic. The starch includes Brachypodium grass and Typha, commonly known as bulrush.

A Revedin, B Aranguren, R Becattini, L Longo, E Marconi, M Mariotti Lippi, N Skakun, A Sinitsyn, E Spiridonova, and J Svoboda. 2010. Thirty thousand-year-old evidence of plant food processing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2010 - 107(44): 18815-18819.

Term 'companion' - fellow, mate, friend, partner is derived from Late Latin (via Old French) meaning someone to share bread with or bread-fellow (com = with, panis = bread, companio).

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How do hunters bake their bread? The First Australians were iconic hunters. An extreme theory makes them even responsible for exterminating giant prehistoric animals. Yet, they spent a good part of their time baking bread. Sure, this was bush bread, resembling damper in method and pita or Egyptian bread in its form.

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"That puts Australian baking way beyond anything that's ever happened anywhere else in the world," says author Bruce Pascoe. He's talking about 36,000-year-old grindstones discovered in New South Wales, used by Aboriginal Australians to turn seeds into flours for baking. That's well ahead of other civilisations that started baking early on, like the Egyptians, who began making bread around 17,000 BC.

Pascoe, who has Bunurong and Tasmanian heritage, combed through early colonists' records to write his latest book, Dark Emu, Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?. Explorers' detailed accounts of packed piles of hay, grain surpluses and three-metre wells contrast with the widely held, skewed view of Aboriginal people as "mere wanderers across the soil" (as Pascoe mentions in the book), revealing instead a sophisticated approach to cultivating and storing food via agricultural methods alongside hunting and foraging practices. According to Pascoe, the diffusion of the simplistic hunter-gatherer image served to justify the dispossession of Aboriginal people.

Pascoe isn't only keen to spread awareness of Indigenous agriculture - he's reviving it. "The idea was that local Aboriginal people would get involved in growing these foods again," Pascoe says of the Gurandgi Munjie collective he's formed with a number other Indigenous Australians living along the NSW south coast and in east Gippsland in Victoria. Over the past few years, they've been trialling native millet, kangaroo grass and murnong crops with the view to increase their harvests and begin selling soon. "One of our aims is to make sure our people earn a living out of it, as well as helping Australia learn about a natural Australian diet."

We love making the breads simply because it tastes so good, but also because it makes the kitchen smell good as well.

While murnong - also known as yam daisy - is a tuber that can be eaten like a vegetable, the seeds of native millet and kangaroo grass make for nutritious, gluten-free flours when milled. "The bread we've made rises like a rye loaf," says Pascoe of Gurandgi Munjie's baking experiments so far, using a sourdough starter and a blend of wheat flour with the native millet or kangaroo grass flours. Some they've been working on with chef Ben Shewry of Melbourne's Attica restaurant. "Ben came down and ate almost the whole loaf himself! He was really thrilled by the texture, flavour and the smell of the bread," says Pascoe. "Kangaroo grass flour has got a really beautiful smell and a nutty flavour. We love making the breads simply because it tastes so good, but also because it makes the kitchen smell good as well."

Though Pascoe's loaves use more modern baking know-how, there are plenty of clues about breadmaking in Indigenous Australian food culture before colonisation, beyond those ancient grindstones. "There are stories and songs around the baking of the flour from all different parts of the country," says Pascoe. While breads may have once been cooked directly on hot coals, ovens were also used. "Many loaves were actually found still in the oven after the Aboriginal people had been killed or sent off the country, so there's evidence there [that's how they] were baked."

Bringing those traditions back to life isn't the only benefit of cultivating these native crops. "Environmentally it's a pretty good deal," says Pascoe. "They're perennials, so once you get your crop established you don't have to plough the land again or add fertiliser or pesticide. Your CO ₂ emission levels are going to drop dramatically because you're not turning the soil over and releasing carbon into the atmosphere."

The flours are all out for the time being, but the next grain harvest is set to take place in January in Mallacoota, Victoria. "These are our foods and it's our culture, so we want to be involved in it," Pascoe says. "For us it's a political and a cultural activity as well as an agricultural activity."

Pascoe told an enthralled audience at a Time Out Talk on The Politics of Bushfood Now in Sydney this week that "within three years, we'll be eating breads made with 50 per cent Indigenous flour". Pascoe was joined by fellow panellists Jody Orcher, an Ularai Barkandji woman from Brewarrina, in north west NSW, and the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney's Aboriginal Education Coordinator; Jade Santo, who has Kudjulla, Bindal and Mitakoodi heritage, and is an apprentice chef who recently worked at noma australia; Time Out's Freya Herring; Lennox Hastie of Sydney restaurant Firedoor, where Indigenous ingredients often appear on the menu; and NITV channel manager Tanya Denning-Orman (read her thoughts on the importance of the stories behind Indigenous ingredients here).

"We want everybody to enjoy bush food, but we want Australians to take pride in buying from Aboriginal people" - Bruce Pacoe #timeouttalks

- Time Out Sydney (@SydneyTimeOut) October 4, 2016

While the title of the talk may have suggested dry political discussions, or fiery debates, the evening was about neither. Instead, the audience learned about the crucial links between food and country, and respect for the land; and the fervent hope of the panellists that the Indigenous food industry did not follow the difficult path of the Indigenous art industry.

Those attending the talk also got a taste of how Indigenous flavours are being used, with award-winning Aboriginal-owned and operated Indigiearth selling tasting plates that included lemon myrtle arancini balls, bush tomato quiche and wattleseed cheescake. Indigiearth assisted noma australia in sourcing local ingredients during the restaurant's pop-up this year - an event that has been a key part of the groundswell of interest in Indigenous ingredients and foodways.
Love the story? Follow the author on Instagram @aleciainturin or Facebook Photographs courtesy of Bruce Pascoe

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Were Indigenous Australians the world's first bakers?

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"That puts Australian baking way beyond anything that's ever happened anywhere else in the world," says author Bruce Pascoe. He's talking about 36,000-year-old grindstones discovered in New South Wales, used by Aboriginal Australians to turn seeds into flours for baking.

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Oz Tukka Authentic Australian Spices and Oils

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Mix the Macadamia Nut Wattle Seed Muffin Mix according to packet. Line and grease a 16 or 20cm round cake tin. Pour batter in and bake at 200C for 25 minutes. While the cake is cooling, whip the and stir in the wattle seed.