Well, I realize it’s been nearly two months since I updated, but I never did get around to my final thoughts about Australia, so I’ll start there. I’ll begin with my regular disclaimer that these are only my personal impressions of this country, and they should in no way sway your own opinions of it. I spent only a very short time there, and saw, geographically, very little of what is a very large country. I did enjoy my time there, and I do recommend it if you feel inclined to actually spend 14+ hours on a plane to get there. These are mostly the little tidbits that I’d been storing up over the trip and didn’t have time to elaborate on while I was actually over there. That or I didn’t feel like typing them all out on the tiny keyboard of my netbook.
Kangaroos. Oh yes, we saw them. Many of them. But mostly dead on the side of the highway between Cairns and Brisbane. I’m not kidding when I say there was a dead kangaroo every 100 metres or so for pretty much the entire stretch of the highway. Some of them were bloated, some of them looked pretty fresh. But there were so many of them you really got tired of seeing them. Fortunately for us, it was relatively cool while we were there (owing to it being winter and all). Apparently in the summer they stink something fierce. Pleasant thought, huh? They’re sortof like deer are in Canada. They like to jump across the highway at night. Or so we were told, since we-thankfully-didn’t see any, likely due to the fact that we didn’t really drive at night a whole lot. Well, the Aussies have come up with a solution: Kangaroo bumpers. That is, of course, only the name Glen and I have given them, because we never actually asked any natives what they were really called (or if that was actually the purpose of them). But nearest we can figure, that’s what they were for. It’s a metal bar across the grille of the car to prevent the kangaroos you hit from doing any damage to your vehicle. Basically, so you can just drive away and hose the blood off the hood later. At one point we heard a rumor that it’s a bit of a sport down there to see how many of the little buggers you can hit with your car. Right now all the bleeding hearts out there are abhorring my callousness, and can’t believe anyone would want to hurt such beautiful and cuddly animals. Okay, sure. But if you saw the sheer number of Kangaroo carcasses out on that highway that we saw, you’d know that kangaroos are not in short supply in Australia. In fact, they’re more of a menace than anything else. So really, it makes sense to have a kangaroo bumper. It saves you the cost or repeatedly repairing your headlights.
Food. Yes, we ate kangaroo meat. No, I did not like it. We had it as sausages one night, then Glen had it again in a meat pie. Both times it was ground, like hamburger, so that may have had some influence on whether or not I liked it. But I found it was a bit gamey, and there was a weird tang that I didn’t really like. Glen didn’t seem to mind it, but he’ll pretty much eat anything that has some type of animal in it. Because we were basically on our own as far as cooking went, we mostly just ate what we’d normally eat at home, so whatever was easiest. But we did try a little of the local foods, mostly in the form of candy and desserts. Lamingtons! I have discovered a love for Lamingtons. It’s basically just a hunk of cake dipped in chocolate, then rolled in coconut. Simple, but delicious. We also tried a whole host of chocolate bars that aren’t sold here in Canada. And I would just like to ask the Cadbury corporation why they don’t sell Cherry Ripe here in Canada? They’re delicious. I would buy them if they were sold here. We also discovered Starburst Snakes. They’re like gummy worms, but the flavors are way, way better. They taste like starburst candy, but in gummy worm form. I think between Glen, Slacker and myself we polished off 3 large bags in the course of a week. They should definitely sell those in Canada. And Smith’s Sweet Thai Chili potato chips. My God, were they good. Glen and I have searched the grocery stores here, but have yet to find anything remotely comparable. It’s probably a good thing those ones aren’t sold in Canada. Meat pies are very popular as a lunchtime meal in Australia. They love a good meat pie. We never did figure out why, but we did try quite a few, and they were pretty good. Kebabs! Oh my, the kebabs! But they’re not what you’d think. It’s really just a donair(or doner if you’re in Oz), that has some vegetables and sauces added, and is then grilled for a few minutes to heat it up. But they’re amazing. We discovered them in Cairns, and I think probably had at least 5 more after that. I justified this by forcing myself to believe they were healthier than they probably were. But they did have vegetables, so it wasn’t a total lie.
Tim Tams. I feel that by the sheer volume of Tim Tams that were consumed by me and Glen that these deserve their own category. They’re fantastic. And what’s strange is, if you look at the ingredients, what’s in them and how they’re put together, they don’t sound particularly appetizing. But for whatever reason, they’re awesome. So awesome, in fact, that there are many, many varieties of them. There’s original, double coat(twice the chocolately coating), Black Forest(filled with cherry and vanilla frosting), Dark(with a dark chocolate coating), Mint, Caramel and Crunch(a crunchy honeycomb is added to the cookie). My personal favorite was the crunch, though that was followed closely by the double coat. Mmmm…so good. The best part? You can get them here! I’ve found them at London Drugs and Save-on-Foods so far. I can’t even fathom a guess at how many packages of Tim Tams we actually ate in the month we were in Australia, but I do know it was a lot.
Cars. Like any country, the cars have different names. And different companies, though they’re the same companies, just with different names. But they also have cars there that aren’t sold here. Utes, for example. The closest thing we have to a ute here is the El Camino. And those didn’t sell particularly well, nor were they in production for very long. Well, there’s a lot of them in Australia. They’re really popular, though neither Glen nor I could figure out why. The other thing Glen noticed was that a lot of the trucks have snorkels. You see, when it rains in Australia, the water doesn’t really get absorbed into the soil. It just sortof runs off. So they get a lot of flooded roads down there. Quite often you’ll see a metre stick on the side of the road, with height marked on it. Why? So you know how deep the water is when the road floods. That way you know if you can drive through it or not. The snorkels on trucks move the air intake for the engine above the actual engine itself, so that you can drive through higher water and your engine won’t get flooded.
Campervans. Glen and I rented a 2-person campervan for our trip. We figured that way we killed 2 birds with one stone-we had wheels and a place to sleep. So rather than staying in hostels, we stayed in caravan parks. Well, in Australia the term “caravan park” means something entirely different. The caravan parks have barbeques that anyone can use-barbeques is code for a grill that’s gas powered, by the way. They have showers with unlimited hot water that, for the most part, you don’t have to pay for. They have a camp kitchen that’s basically just an outdoor kitchen without pots, pans or utensils(but they do have fridges, kettles, and microwaves). And they often have a pool. Yeah, life on the road was rough. Because of this fabulous infrastructure, apparently a new culture has emerged. The Caravan culture. We met a LOT of these people in the caravan parks. They’re usually seniors who are retired and actually have home elsewhere, but just go caravanning for a good chunk of the year. For the most part, they go north to Queensland where it’s warmer in the winter. Sorta like the snowbirds in Canada. They seem to stay at the same park every year, and some places even have a spot saved for them. They have neighbors that come back every year as well. So they all know each other. This subsequently leads to social activities being planned. Lawn bowling, in particular, seemed to be quite popular. It’s really quite fascinating, and in the month we were there we met tons of people just by being in the caravan parks. And they were generally always willing to chat your ear off if you had the time.
It’s a lot like home. Australia is a lot like Canada, with different flora and fauna. They measure everything in metric, they speak English, they use dollars and the queen is on their money as well. Their cities are quite far apart, and to get around and really see the country you need a car. It’s also a young country, relatively speaking, so much like Canada, they really don’t have a lot of old buildings with a lot of history. It’s all relatively new. They build their roads and sidewalks and overpasses the same. The food is pretty much the same. Honestly, if you took away the accent, and the change in trees and dropped the price of gas a few cents, a lot of Canadians probably wouldn’t know the difference.
Since it’s been a while, those are the little tidbits I can remember from our month-long excursion to Australia. Stay tuned, because I spent last week in San Francisco pedaling like a maniac. And I know you all want to hear about that.
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