The baked Potato


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Oceania » Australia
June 6th 2009
Published: September 3rd 2009
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Classic KookaburraClassic KookaburraClassic Kookaburra

Jervis Bay,Nsw
We powered down the Pacific highway towards our next destination of Sydney at lightning speed. The wide open Australian road made it easy to drive quickly and with little hassle (Apart from the odd speed camera!) There is an indescribable feeling of freedom and power that comes with having your own car. The ability to go wherever you want whenever you want to with one arm hanging out the window, the stereo blazing there is nothing quite like it. With my hair blowing back in the wind it almost felt as if something was wrong. This was all too easy, such immense beauty with nothing to worry about, it was TOO PERFECT. It was as if I felt something should go wrong to make it more exciting. But it wasn’t to be that way, the coast was idyllic, the weather glorious and nothing was there to complain about. The road down the coast of New South Wales is very picturesque with rolling green hills interlaced amongst tropical palms and rainforest that stretches almost all the way down to Sydney. We passed the crazy Australian sculptures of the big pineapple, big prawn and the big banana. They were made to establish
Lush RainforestLush RainforestLush Rainforest

Dorrigo, New South Wales
the main produce of the township and made a highly uninteresting town at least worth a brief stop. Finally, after about 4000km and 3 weeks we arrived on a sunny, sleepy Sunday afternoon in my home town of Sydney.

Driving in brought up an interesting set of emotions as it had been so long since I had last been here. As it had been 10 years since I last lived here, the mass boom and growth that had taken over the city left little of what I originally remembered. Especially since a lot of my friends had moved on or I had lost contact, it felt more foreign than homely. It was great to catch up with my dad, to rant and rave about world changes and the loss of character on many places in and around Sydney. After seeing a couple other friends before I knew it, it was time to move on and we headed west towards Kangaroo Valley.
Ironically, Kangaroo Valley was full of the strange uniquely Australian wombats and had hardly any kangaroos around; the guy who named the place must have be blind. I met up with an old mate Pete, and we were planning to do a canoe trip through the Shoalhaven Gorge but we were confined to our tents as the heavens opened up with a downpour that lasted days until we became fed up and headed to the coast of Jervis bay a quaint little inlet just a few hours south of Sydney. The nature was spectacular, waking to the unusual and extremely loud calls of the unique Kookaburra at dawn and seeing a huge kangaroo lying leisurely outside, growling and hissing at us as we came close. The amazing variety of wild animals I have seen since coming to Australia had been staggering, Wallabies, Snakes , Rosellas, Cockatoos, Geckos, Spiders and Wombats just to name a few had been far greater here than I have seen anywhere else I have been in the world.
As the evening fell and the cicadas began their nightly concert, we sat around the fire telling tales and cooked up a storm that included potatoes stuffed with onion and cheese, wrapped in foil and left to slowly perfect in the coals until they were soft and tasted superb. It was hard to believe that something so easy was so tasty and showed
Old Train WreckOld Train WreckOld Train Wreck

Victoria Border
that the simple things were always the best.
We passed some time with a spot of fishing off the rocks and normally an extremely unlucky fisherman I actually bagged a foot long "wobbegong" or shark but was too small to keep so we let him off. At least I could say I caught a shark!
We said farewell after a few days at the bay and headed our separate ways our next main destination was Melbourne, Sydney’s old rival.
As we headed inland the surroundings changed dramatically to being much cooler amongst a dry and rocky landscape with mixes of parched yellow and pale green grass from years of drought. As we passed through the highest mountains of Australia ( not really that high! ) and the nights became decidedly colder and we were forced to use hotel accommodation as the tent didn’t seem very inviting.
Crossing the Victoria state line we encountered more sparse land with little water about, a lot of areas had been burnt out by raging bushfires that left little but charred black remains. We decided to camp by a lake further along the highway but when we arrived we saw that
Deserted BeachDeserted BeachDeserted Beach

Evans Head, New South Wales
the water had completely dried up! The area around was a hundred year old railroad station with a few old tracks and carriages left abandoned and rusting away, the ancient paint cracking and peeling in the strong southern sun.
The carriage doors were barely hanging by their hinges and most of the windows were smashed out. It’s easy to just wonder and imagine about their history and the stories of all the people they must have carried.
We threw a few dry bits of kindling and twigs into an old wheel barrow and sparked up a fire in lightening speed with no real work required. The night was peaceful with hardly any sounds around, it would have been a prefect night had we remembered to bring along a couple of potatoes!
Arriving into Melbourne just before Good Friday we crashed at my old friends place Dale and Fiona for so much needed rest and relaxation. We did a little sightseeing of the city, not half as glamorous as Sydney yet somehow maintains a great interracial community feel as well as a very stubborn "Melbourne is the greatest" attitude. AFL - Australian Rules Football is normally the first
RosellasRosellasRosellas

Jervis Bay
topic discussed around a schooner of beer at the pub so even if you are not a fan be sure just to pick a team you barrack for or you will be considered a weirdo and not worth talking to.
We spent a few days replacing bits and bobs in the car and I started to feel a little daunted by the 6000 odd km left to travel with not much in between. Any problem with the car could mean an extremely long wait of possibly weeks waiting in some lifeless roadhouse in the middle of nowhere.
Having packed everything including the potatoes, I bit my lip as we charged our way out of Melbourne towards Perth through the sparse uninhabited centre of Australia known as the Nullabor Plain.
A few hours outside of Melbourne lies the Grampian National Park which marks the end of the Great Diving Range, a winding stretch of mountains that begins slightly north of Cairns and ends here. Yet these dry and rocky outcrops were a world away from what met us up north. The cool, crisp air made trekking through here quite a pleasure and we were slightly sad to be
Token KangarooToken KangarooToken Kangaroo

Jervis Bay,Nsw
leaving as we headed further towards the flat plains of South Australia. We promptly passed through Adelaide as there was nothing really to see or do and headed up and across the mainland, full of wheat belts and not much else. Australia has had a long history of problems with driver fatigue, as we pass many signs of Stop, Revive, Survive. The endless driving for hours along a straight and uneventful road I began to feel quite tired. It is almost impossible to maintain attention for such long periods of time without feeling weary. After many rest breaks we passed through Port Augusta, the last real town before over 1000 miles of nothingness known as the Nullabor. We packed the car with a few days’ groceries and headed out across the red rock desert-like landscape. Hours flew by and we decided to take a small diversion ( 200 km ) to see the coastline near Port Kenny. The area surrounding appeared as though nothing had lived there for thousands of years. The town was small and had little character and we admired the small community that could live out here in such isolated and desolate circumstances. After a quick breakfast
Big Gallah,Big Gallah,Big Gallah,

South Australia
we sadly had to leave our potatoes on the picnic table (hoping someone would use them) as we knew we were heading to the state line where all fresh food was quarantined to a big bin due to control of insects. It is difficult to describe the land that surrounds this arid part of Australia. With little rainfall, it is next to impossible to live in these dry, hot conditions bar a few remaining nomadic aboriginal tribes that pass through looking for fertile areas to camp. The vast expanse of small shrubs, dry grass and endless blue sky can at times be quite disorientating. The only wildlife around is the occasional smashed kangaroo decomposing on the side of the highway and the armies of flies that attempt to invade every crevice of the body. I felt great admiration for the original explorers that passed for months across this arid, empty terrain. The only other people that live out here now are at the tiny communities that service the highway roadhouses that serve fuel to the mighty trucks known here as road trains due to many carrying more than 2 trailers. There was a roadhouse about every 200km so it was
Nullabor RoadhouseNullabor RoadhouseNullabor Roadhouse

Nullabor, South Australia
always great to stop by to have a chat with the people whose lives see little else but truckies and travelers. We cross the state about a week after leaving Melbourne with still over a week of driving to the final destination. The areas seemed even more deserted but the night sky was more bright and luminous than I have seen anywhere else on the planet. It was so hard to just keep on driving, I just wanted to see an end to the endlessness of the plains. Finally, we approached to the south coast town of Esperence. The fresh smell of the seas was invigorating and the expectation of something great had finally arrived. Gorgeous cliffs marked the coastline and the nearby national park boasted turquoise coloured beaches albeit freezing water was not enough to stop me taking a plunge into the salty ocean. Time spent relaxing was short-lived as we continued west, the setting sun blaring in my face made driving difficult. We set up camp just north of the Stirling Ranges in a rest stop and quickly gathered bits of old timber and twigs lying about and started a small fire as the sun was melting away
Nullarbor PlainNullarbor PlainNullarbor Plain

South Australia
to the west. The night air was coldish and we warmed ourselves up with some traditional Aussie Goon (Cask wine) and watched the burning red embers glow and crackle under the night sky as the road trains thundered off in the distance. This time we remembered too get the now famous potatoes and carefully wrapped and baked them in the hot coals. I had a brief empty feeling that this maybe the last campfire for quite sometime and it was great to end it with such a simple and delicious dish that would have been quite similar even in the times of the old explorers.

After just over 6 weeks and 12000km later we arrived at our final destination of Perth for much earned relaxation and what a better place than this laid back city. Even though it is quite a big city of over a million, it definitely doesn’t fell like it. Everyone seems to be running at a much slower pace that the rest of the countrys' cities. We stayed at my mums place and it was great to be able to spend more than a month here not wanting to go anywhere else! I spent
Western DesertWestern DesertWestern Desert

Western Australia
my late teens and early twenties here and driving along I saw that all the monuments and buildings I remembered were still there, encapsulated with memories of a time long gone. I shuffled down an old familiar street and stared into one of the typical pubs that I used to frequent with fervent faith that could constitute worship. They felt to me like empty shells now, no longer possessing the youthful ignorance and boyish recklessness I had once imbued into them. The memories belonged to someone else as those emotions were not brewing anymore inside me.
My friends were still the same characters in the same play with similar roles, new kids, different girlfriends or better jobs. I had no longer had a part to play, I was a familiar outcast. I felt my actions were no more without consequence or burden. What I had gained in knowledge of beautiful lands and interesting tales of culture and character I had lost in that simple childlike innocence. The curtains had been called, and this was no longer my home...



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Going for a swimGoing for a swim
Going for a swim

Esperence, Western Australia
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Token Koala

Yanchep National Park , Western Australia


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