Campfires are a great thing to do when the weather gets colder.

Anyone who has built a campfire knows that they have the capacity to bring people together and make us feel more connected to the natural world. People tend to find something fascinating about flames and glowing coals, so a campfire is usually a pleasant and warm way to pass the time from dusk to bedtime. Children love the magic of a campfire as they stare into the flames and imagine. Campfires are great places for cooking, storytelling and singing songs. We all know that a campfire is great for roasting marshmallows on sticks.

We found it best to plan ahead so we could really enjoy the magic of building a campfire. It is always good to have someone who has experience in making a fire with you, we had Simon who is an experienced camper with lots of fire making experience in the wild. We also gave ourselves plenty of time. Before we built our fire the children went for a bush walk with Simon to collect kindling and wood for the fire.

We then built the fire, made up our damper and then cooked it on the fire and served it with some billy tea.

Below you will find information on

• A recipe for damper
• A recipe for billy tea.
• How to build a campfire (which you never do without adult supervision)

Damper recipe

Damper is traditionally an Australian unleavened bread baked in the hot coals of a campfire. The dough is wrapped around a stick and cooked or put into an iron pot and buried in the hot coals.

The bread is called damper because the fire is damped to allow the bread to be cooked over the ash covered hot coals.

During colonial times it was a staple food in the bush because the dry ingredients could be easily carried and they only needed to add water to make the damper. (The original version had no sugar or butter and used water instead of milk.)

What you will need

• 2 cups of self raising flour
• ½ teaspoon of salt
• 1 to 1 ½ cups of milk
• 2 teaspoons of butter
• 2 teaspoons of sugar
• Extra flour as needed
• Some medium sized sticks collected from the bush
• An iron pot in case you don’t want to use sticks or it takes too long

What to do

• Mix the flour, salt and sugar together into a bowl.
• Cut in the butter until fine crumbs form.
• Add milk slowly and mix to form a soft dough.
• Knead lightly on a floured board until smooth.
• Shape into a round loaf, brush with milk and cut a cross in the
  top surface of the dough.
• Cut into moderately thick slices and serve while still warm. Top with butter, golden syrup, or your favourite jam.

A quick and easy method the drovers in the outback used to make damper is to wrap the dough around a stick to toast it over the coals. Fill the hole where the stick was with butter, golden syrup or jam.

Billy tea

Making Billy Tea is one of those legendary pastimes where every bushy has his own method and style and fiercely disputes the quality of any tea made by any other bushy

What you need

• Tea, Australian grown of course
• Sugar as needed
• Milk as needed
• Water
• “Billy Can”, make your own or buy one
• Forked stick

What you do

• Wait for some coals of the fire - ie when the wood has burnt down a bit.
• Put the Billy on.
• When boiling, throw in a single fistful of tea for each person and then throw one in for the pot.
• Leave on heat for another minute then pull away from coals using the forked stick on the handle to lift.
• However if you just let it sit for a minute or two and then pour carefully you still get a good cuppa.
• Use a tea strainer to remove the tea leaves and then serve the way you like it black or with milk and/or sugar.

Nothing like a good tin mug of billy tea to start the day, and served with some damper - mmmm yum!

Building a campfire

What to do:

(must be under adult supervision someone 21years and older):

• Find a good spot to build your campfire.  We organised to build ours on a friends property in Warrandyte and we asked their permission first
• Build the fire directly on mineral soil surrounded by an open area of bare ground with no exposed plants and roots and build a fire ring.  Dig a pit away from overhanging branches. Circle the pit with rocks. Clear a 5 foot area around the pit down to the soil.
• Stack extra wood upwind and away from fire.
• Make sure you have a shovel and plenty of water nearby or sand. An additional safety measure is to have sand and water on hand to smother and douse the fire if it does get out of the fire pit. It is wise to gather these materials before they are actually needed.
• Only use dead wood collected from the ground.
• Keep the fire as small as possible
• Lighting the fire - Place dry kindling and small dry sticks in an a shaped frame in the centre of the pit. Place slightly larger sticks in top. Keep dry kindling nearby and bigger sticks for when the fire catches. Light the kindling with a match. Once the large kindling is burning, all of the kindling should be put on the fire and then add the bigger branches or logs as needed to keep it going.
• If the kindling does not catch fire, it could be because the wood is wet, the weather is too wet there is too much wind or  there is a lack of oxygen.Blow a bit on the small flames to get the fire going.  Make sure an adult does this.
• After lighting, do not discard match until cold.
• Make sure you extinguish the fire properly when you have finished with it. To properly cool a fire, water should be splashed on all the embers, including places that are not glowing red. The water should be poured until the hissing noises stop.  Then the ashes should be stirred with a stick to make sure that the water has penetrated all the layers; if the hissing continues, more water should be added. A fire is fully extinguished if the ashes are cool to the touch.  If water is scarce, sand may be used. The sand will deprive the fire of oxygen quite well, but it is much less effective than water at absorbing heat. Once the fire has been covered thoroughly with sand, all water that can be spared should be poured on it, and the sand stirred into the ash.
• If you are in a wilderness area, make sure you replace anything that was moved while preparing the fire site, and scatter anything that was gathered, returning it to its natural way you found it

Some don’ts

• Don’t build your fire in the wild
• Never build a fire during dry periods or when its windy, because the fire can spread quickly and out of control and the bush being dry will catch fire easier
• Don’t leave the fire unattended
• No fire should be lit close to trees, tents or other fire hazards. This includes overhanging branches; some carry dead, dry material that can ignite from a single airborne ember.
• Fires also should not be lit on bare rocks. The ash will leave a black stain that cannot be easily removed, but the fire’s heat can lead to more dramatic consequences. It will cause the outer layer of the rock to expand, possibly causing it to crack. It may also boil pockets of water contained in the rock.