kangaroos | Travel Oops

Shrimp? author: Ramiroja

“Maybe we should get some shrimp,” I suggested to Kurt as we cruised through the aisles of Coles, one of Australia’s main grocery stores. “You know Aussies really like their ‘shrimp on the barbie.’” I repeated a well-known fact in the US about Australians and their barbecue bounty.

Kurt and I were preparing to host our first “legit” Australian barbecue. To say barbecuing is popular in Australia is a pretty flimsy assessment. BBQs in Australia are like Baptist churches in the Bible Belt of the US. They are a given, well attended and the followers are devout.

We knew barbecue was big time. In fact, only living in Adelaide a few weeks, we had already been invited to two events.

The grills, alone, are impressive precision-engineered machines and major household appliances. Some look like they could power a small aircraft. Certainly the control panel of the one we used confused a rookie Yank like me as I attempted to adjust settings during a trial run.

Consequently, we searched Coles for the right meats, sides and even condiments. “I don’t see any shrimp at all — just these prawns,” I called out to Kurt. “Yikes, and look at how expensive they are.” I could certainly understand exorbitant prices for seafood in a land locked area, but we were ten minutes from the ocean. Nixing the idea of shrimp, we considered other options.

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Get off the road! Don’t go into the light…

When Australians, who are generally straight forward, tell you not to drive in the bush or outback at dusk, listen to them. They know what they are talking about. And they’re talking about kangaroos and camels — but mostly kangaroos — in the headlights. Kangaroos constitute most of the road kill in Australia. In fact, many Australian vehicles have large metal “roo guards” on the front to protect the radiator in case of a hit. Our rental caravan, however, merely sported the logo of the company.

Driving from Perth, Western Australia to Exmouth, WA, is a haul. Western Australia is huge and it’s easy to misjudge distances. Kurt and I found ourselves in the outback at dusk and then dark with no sign of any towns for several hundred kilometers. Yikes!