FICNIC from Lamaroc on Vimeo.

It'd been months since my last outing with the Backseat Ballads, I mustered enough strength to get up out of bed. Ignoring my hangover, I set out to Masarap Bakery in Braybrook to get three bags of freshly baked Pan de Sal as my contribution to the days Picnic affair. With Melbourne's penchant for volatile weather, I was a bit doubtful it holding up for our outdoor degustation session. Thankfully, the gobble god left in a good word with the Man upstairs and delayed the raining of cats and dogs by a clock cycle.

After quite a leisurely morning meet-up with the days cast and the traffic jam that is St. Albans Viet school, we head out for our first pitstop at Ring Road Macca's. With amazing GMO $1 coffees, a cylinder pack of Joe's home made Chicharon, we set out in his Jeep towards the Dandenong Ranges.

Mind you, it was probably the first time these 4 genius' had sat in an hour long ride together and the brilliance that is Backseat Ballads allowed for some pretty incredible synergy. There were conversations about Bronomics, my love life, efficient work practices and some of the most amazing one-line analogies and similes that our team favourite John O'Neil could utter in a day.

After about an hour drive in and a secret voice note recording, we'd finally arrived at our destination. Neil's idea to think negatively about the weather seemed to have payed off, as we were greeted with warm sun rays that fell like soft columns of light through the brown, burgundy and red leaves that were yet to make their Autumn fall. Alfred Nicholas, whoever you are, thanks for being such a sick dood that they commemorated such a beautiful park in your name!

How is it in your 30's with not even a speckle of interest in the great outdoors did something look so magnificent and feel so special? It was time to take a shit, so we rolled up our favourite cough lolly leaves and proceeded to make room for lunch ahead.

After a bit of scattered-ness, to-ing and fro-ing to the car park for the Picnic necessities, it was to my delight that the outing-duo guru's Huy and Thai had already begun setting up.

We set up under a tree which we were soon to rudely find out was that of the King of the Bush's stomping ground… he brought his Queen with him too as they stalked overhead at the offerings we brought for him.

It was the first time in a long time that I'd been delighted to see a picnic mat out with little blobs of lovely lard I had the pleasure of calling my friends.

Like viewing a time lapse of a Master Chess game, laid out were so many morsels of food, a reflection of the characters that make this Game of Thrones:

From the trenches of Brimbank County came our Safeway Staple Anti-Pasto set. (f**k Woolworths lol and the local deli was too busy anyway)

From the Duchess of Derrimut, Derrimut iA-iA Oh-Oh came with her castle made jam and cream scones which we later found out tasted good with an additional spread of terrine (WTF right?!)

From the Patrolla Fort in the Forests of Jamieson Street, came Joe's ever-essential Swine-tidbits of Chicharon.

Baguettes from Burnham Bakery with Lescure salted butter plus an assortment of aged and smoked cheeses were brought by the Honorable Huy Le. Keeper of the knowledge that hail from the Main Roads of the East.

A pork and pistachio Terrine, duck l'orange pate and a lightly dressed pea, carrot and spinach Macaroni Salad from the Tantalizing Thai.

**Names of other Bearers of other offerings were lost in the transcript somewhere in the annals of dranks last weekend, but additional oral orgasms came in their forms of:  

*Falsely claimed home-made salted buns Pan de Sal (Thank you Masarap Bakery)

*Breadsticks, Watercrackers and dips

With classic Soul Music wafting out of Thai's Outdoor Sound System, we took the necessary actions of enhancing our food shine content courtesies of Abraham. After a few documenting exercises with Huy's and everyone else's personal Image Capturers, we were ready to glide our hands and plates over the mini-city of heavenly delights.

My favourite part of this wonderful afternoon would have had to be the tea and Chemex filtered coffee. I was spewing that I hadn't had a flask of Tanduay Rum to put into my Long Black, but there was something to atone for the Freakshow that our tourists made of us as they walked past… and that was to recline and look back at the outside looking in.

It's funny, but with our group of early twenties into the thirties something rather, it seems that through the visions of those who paved the way before us, we were blessed with the impelling feeling that we need to escape the concrete jungle and venture out into the unknown. Perhaps in a past life, we were all vagabonds, I know I am,  but here it was, that which we choose to escape from, staring back at us for doing what, perhaps at a time more golden, was a lot more common for families to do all over the world. Is our paper chase that much more important than downtime spent with people doing simple things such as sip coffee beans collected from bird faeces, playing a card game of 13 and picking away at pickled goods?

This is what we are all always grateful for with Backseat Ballads and their various offshoots. It's that opportunity of empowerment and recharge that we as a whole, collectively bring, take ownership and make unique to our family the abundance of the world around us. There is no judgement (except for my sisters disdain for my taste in women), no rules to abide by except for common courtesy, but most importantly it's for the love of good company, good surroundings and a good song that helps us bellow our inner-demons expelling them en route to some magical place… somewhere… in our backyard we call Victoria…