Cooking Bush: Pencarrow Emergency Eta Peanuts

After my big walk last week, which left me a little sore for 3 days, I wanted to do something a little more easy going. I have also been thinking about cooking fish and mussels on a beach fire, getting all stone-age and cooking with no implements besides sticks and rocks. I also wanted to work on my spoon in earnest and try out an experimental hobo stove I made in 2 minutes. I will put the results of these projects in future posts.

So Pencarrow seemed like a good deal. Flat track, short ride, fine day... I should of done my homework...

Pencarrow emergency Eta Peanuts. One lighthouse perched behind on the top of the hill, and the other bellow waiting like vultures.

Ingredients:

200g Eta Salted Peanuts
Whole fish
Green lipped mussels

The first thing you want to do is take your fish, and your mussels and throw them in the bin. Pencarrow is pure evil and no food should ever be cooked there. Only Eta Peanuts can be consumed.

The start of the Pencarrow gravel road is at the end of the sealed road running around Eastbourn, the east coast of Wellington harbour. It is just around the corner from the entrance to Butterfly Creek where you can, incidentally, make some excellent Butterfly Creek Black Bread . The road gives you access to the Parangarahu Lakes area, which includes a number of short tracks around the lakes and up to the old Pencarrow lighthouse on the top of the hill.

Pencarrow will seem rather pleasant at first. It does not look far, maybe under an hour on bike. The sun shines, there is a gentle wind behind you. The Pencarrow road runs along a number of shallow bays and there are great views of the South Island, and Wellington. On the maps you can see two lakes which look to be an explorers wonderland!

Pencarrow is literally a shit hole, literally. Just around the corner from the Pencarrow lighthouse is a charming sewage outflow. The trail is festooned with a plethora of signs informing you of this. Don't swim in the sea. Don't eat anything caught from it. While you are at it, it might be a good idea not to breath for a bit aswell. To make you feel just that extra special once you get just around the tip of the coast you will be bathed in a beautiful soft sewagey sea spray. Delightful!

The lakes, while making my Ecologist heart go squee look squalid. The whole region is barren, and swept by winds intent on punching you in the face again and again,draining you of any moisture and possibly part of your soul too. There was no way I would cook in this unholy and unhygienic land.

The whole place is made of hate and evil and once it lures you in it won't want to let go. As soon as you turn around to go back, regardless of the weather, you will be into a howling head wind. The sun, which until now was a gentle kiss on your neck, is now also putting the boot directly in your face. The wind and sun will conspire to flay you skin until it feels like this.

Contrary to your now desiccated face, your nose will run and the wind will tear the salty line across your cheek as if dragging a miniature cat with salt dipped claws. For some added torture there will be a 20 second lull in the wind in the middle of each bay. But this is only because the wind has gone off to get a bucket of sand which it will gift to you as soon as you get around the corner. As well as adding to the general misery your skin and eyes, the sand will get into your bike which will start to screech and wheeze like a bag of metal bones. My bike got very angry and took a bite out of my leg. I don't blame her.

Don't go there. Stay home and play Skyrim.

The peanuts were good but you can eat those at home.