It's Springtime at Tarzali

 Spring has arrived and Summer is just around the corner - so why not fill a pond full of eels? That is just what we did. About 150,000 of the little darlings each as long as your little finger and a bit narrower. Transportation of this large quantity of eels was quite a task and it took three return trips to deliver them safely to their new home.

If you happened to be listening to the ABC radio on the Saturday afternoon of the delivery, then you would have heard yours truly on a live interview en route.

It was a few days before the eels settled down but they are now accustomed to their new environment and are happily eating. We also took delivery of 3,000 Barra, which were introduced to the settlement pond and will provide anglers some good sport fishing in the coming months.

Pete and I set up a stall at the Taste of the Tablelands Festival in early October. Our smoked products sold out almost immediately with no time to spare. There was strong demand for our smoked eel and fish, chorizo, bush sausage and pastrami. It is great to see that our Aussie tastes are becoming more daring.

On the bush tucker front, our Milla Milla vine is fruiting at the moment. This is a relatively new flavour for me that I intend to experiment with a couple of basic sauces to develop our new product range.  Pete tells me that the possums love it and that makes them easy to find when doing his nocturnal tours.

We have had quite a few school study groups go through lately and it has been great noticing the interest and enthusiasm shown by these young people in Aquaculture and Environmental Science. Overseas visitors have been calling in for bird watching and platypus tours. They have confirmed that our area is world renowned for its wide variety of native birds and mammals, so I have decided to get myself a pair of binoculars to become more acquainted with our abundant wildlife.

Pete and Yuwadee are now a happy married couple and the wedding went off a treat (what I remember of it). We have a great venue here to host such occasions so if you are thinking about tying the knot, renewing your wedding vows or just having a wing ding for no particular reason...Tarzali Lakes is the place to go.

  
        Dave Hoffman
    Smokehouse Master