The epic road trip: moving Barney across the continent

So there are some things that Barney doesn't like:
- Fluctuations in temperature
- Fluctuations in humidity
- Movement

And all these things were going to feature strongly in our road trip... so to prepare for the trip I dried some of Barney out for backup. Then we set off with Barney in his original form, packed into my lunchbox with a couple of cold packs. We took him out every night to rest in the fridge, and then during the day he would stay in the lunchbox. He was unfussed through the whole trip! I fed him a few times, but mostly I just used him to bake like I usually would.

The first oven we came across was at the Swagman’s Rest apartments in Alice. It was a gas oven but hardly heated to a temperature high enough for baking. Shaping into rolls made sense then, and they did cook through though hardly browned after more than an hour in the oven. 

The second oven we baked in was at the Airbnb in Adelaide. This was a pretty standard oven and probably was hot enough. Unfortunately he was over-proofed and these rolls ended up being too crusty and flavour-wise on the too sour side.

Third time lucky, we stayed in an Airbnb just across the road from St Kilda beach. Here we were able to make a real loaf of bread, though he got a bit burnt probably from uneven heating of the top coils. The other loaf came with me to piano quintets, and was baked in the lovely cellist’s kitchen. Her oven was having problems with the temperature control, but she had a real casserole dish, so it worked out really well. What a beautiful thing to eat with quintets!

Baking by eye was also really fun! I usually weigh my ingredients and so don't pay too much attention, but this was a great challenge to see how it would work when just eyeballing it. I found that once the dough was formed / proofed a little bit it felt too dry, but then it was too late to add more water!

The epic road trip (4): Crossing into Victoria, and home

Day 10: Kangaroo Island - Donovans

We loved our stay on Kangaroo Island, probably because there were hardly any tourists around except at the main attractions. We found it easy to get away from the crowds and enjoy the beautiful scenery.

Another early start saw us on the 8:30am ferry back to the mainland.

The GPS took us through some strange roads - lots of towering trees and later through some gorgeous wine country.

We drove for a long time next to the Coorong lakes - a huge expanse of freshwater that seemed forgotten. We had planned to eat lobster in Kingston, but lobster season had finished! Larry the Lobster is pretty humongous, on sale for $300K if anyone is looking for a career change!

A little while later we got to Mount Gambier. It was a cloudy day and also the wrong season, so the Blue lake wasn't that vibrant blue of Google images. Still, it was an incredibly tranquil place to relax and breathe in the fresh air.

We spent the night in the most adorable Airbnb ever in Donovans, a tiny town half an hour outside Mount Gambier. The country cottage was just so sweet, and we loved picking a few apples and lemons, then settling down in front of the fire with Enid Blyton.


Day 11: Donovans - Anglesea

I had thought this would be a leisurely day, but had completely forgotten how difficult the actual Great Ocean Road drive is. We crossed the border into Victoria fairly early, and then we were shocked by the tourists. The GOR is one of Victoria's premier attractions, and it's easy to see why so many people come here. 

Bay of Islands 

London bridge

Loch Ard Gorge

Since the last time I visited GOR in 2003, the 12 Apostles have partially fallen down but the visitor centre now has to be seen to be believed. Huge numbers of tour buses and big tour groups crowded around the short walk to the apostles. It was hard to appreciate the beauty with so much noise and commotion around!

We found our own tranquility though, having lunch in a deserted forest.

Some spectacular viewpoints along the GOR. Google tells us that it is the biggest tribute to World War I in the world, having been built by the soldiers who returned from WWI to commemorate their fallen colleagues.

So many Chinese tourists... so the road signs are also in Chinese. Can you believe we are in Australia??


Day 12: Anglesea - Melbourne

We spent the night in sleepy Anglesea and headed to Melbourne the next day. There was crazy smog along the road that day with poor visibility. Traffic was awful as we went for a round town drive and then checked into our Airbnb in St Kilda.

Melbourne people are busy, right! So they even have professional dog walkers.

Sunset at St Kilda pier. We saw a few fairy penguins here, but the number of people there was phenomenal!

That night I caught up with my lovely friend Amy who had bought a beautiful house in inner city Melbourne. It was such a nice change to eat non-Chinese food after eating Chinese food non stop along the road trip! We started to play some piano duets but 1.5 Beethoven pieces later, the neighbours complained about the noise... those uncultured Melbournians..


Day 13: Melbourne

There were a lot of grand plans for Day 13. I had made a dough with Barney (more on that later) and planned to take it with me to piano quintets. But the air conditioning was really difficult to control and the apartment was so warm that the dough just grew to gigantic proportions...

In the morning I caught up with my amazing friend Sam. We met in Mexico over two years ago and have kept in touch since, which is just so lovely in this day and age. We went to a hipsteriffic veg cafe in St Kilda (of course, where else!) and I had this delicious buddha bowl with a tasty beetroot hummus.

In the afternoon I went to play piano quintet with my friend's string quartet. Driving along the Monash freeway was a good induction back to real life. I was struck by the kindness and generosity of the host, and also by what an incredible quartet they were. It was the first big group event I've played in where the participants are actually so in sync with each other they don't have to do the 1,2,3 counting..

We played Dvorak's piano quintet no.2, such a gorgeous piece that I found myself swooning at multiple points. There are some really bright and gregarious parts, alongside some beautiful melancholic melodies.. then we played a little bit of the Brahms piano quintet in F minor. Funny that I've never played Brahms. He's not too bad really..

Our last dinner on the road was these dumplings made with barney. The chewy slightly sour flavour of the dumpling skins has ruined me for instant dumplings... forever.

Day 14: Melbourne - home

This was one of our epic drive days and we were all in a great mood and looking forward to home.

The fog was pretty heavy again.

After about three hours we got back to New South Wales!

It's odd there's a big submarine shell in this little town in the middle of nowhere..

Last stop in Goulburn with the Big Merino.

Last sunset on the road

Home sweet home, 6000km later. We had spent two weeks traversing three states and one territory, seen a diverse range of beautiful landscapes, spied a whole bunch of animals in the wild (camels, horses, countless kangaroos, 1 dingo, 1 emu, 3 koalas, lots of eagles, buffalos, cows, 2 penguins) and drunk much much coffee (both drinkable and non-drinkable. I think only when one is on the road, one can really appreciate how huge Australia is and just how raw the land is. It is an incredible country we live in.

The epic road trip (3): Kangaroo Island

Day 8: Adelaide - Kangaroo Island 

It was freezing and raining as we got up super early for the 1.5hr drive to the ferry at Cape Jervis. The road was completely dark and it was incredibly hard to see in the rain. My dad soldiered on driving at speeds I would never have been able to achieve. The light began to lift as we got closer, but the rain continued. We just made the ferry with barely a moment to spare! Had I been driving, we would have definitely missed it.

The trip across was short and very choppy. It continued to rain for much of that first morning. We stayed at Baudin Beach apartments which was very nice, a cosy little hut in a small village.

I've never seen this strange grape like plant anywhere!

Sweet little ant that came up to visit while I was reading on the porch. 

The lady next door raises orphaned kangaroos and had a few that hung around her place that were practically tame. I dropped into the art gallery too, and had a chat with the woodwork artist who was stationed there that day.

 

We headed out to American River for some oysters, and saw heaps of black swans along the way. 

Along the estuary, we saw some discarded stingray carcasses being picked over by seagulls. A friendly local walking his dog told us that unknown fishermen had picked these up and dumped them on the shore. It made us quite sad.

In the afternoon we headed to Emu bay, where the white sand was beautifully soft.

We had planned to attend the pelican feeding at Kingscote, but this had stopped for the season. The pelicans waited patiently on the platform, allowing themselves to be photographed by the big crowd there.


Day 9: Kangaroo Island

We took a day trip to Flinders chase NP which was just one of the most spectacular places I've ever visited.

It was a wonderful day of stunning blue skies and an incredible sea wherever we turned.

We went to Admiral's arch where the sea washed up violently onto the rocks. 
 

There were seals everywhere!

At the end of the walkway is the actual arch, the limestone worn away by the sea. Here we saw lots of seals frolicking in the water and lazing about. The baby seals were really playful, dashing around and trying to annoy the adult seals. 

Then we went to the Remarkable rocks, which were really remarkable. 

We stopped for snacks here, setting up under one of the dramatic rock formations. Nature is so incredible in transforming rocks to all these different things.

On the way back we stopped at the visitors centre to spot koalas. Literally 2 minutes after we left the visitors centre area, we saw 2 koalas! They are the picture of sweet tranquility, sleeping the day away in a tree.

We stopped for a late lunch at Vivonne Bay, setting up next to the beautiful Harriet river washing into the sea. 

Feeling a bit tired, we headed home to rest. At sunset we headed down to Baudin beach and saw this solitary pelican.

The epic road trip (2): Down the middle to Adelaide

Day 5: Alice Springs - Coober Pedy 

We crossed the border with the dual signs of Welcome to South Australia / Northern Territory and a surprising number of people were there taking photos.

We arrived in Coober Pedy in the afternoon, an outback town known for producing the majority of Australia's opals. We tried to do a mine tour but it was all booked out, and having arrived so late in the day, there were few other options.

So instead we went to the underground Catacomb church, where a friendly volunteer gave us a pretty thorough history of the place. The main part of the church was dug by hand / dynamite in the 70s, and the extension done fairly recently with machines. The winch under the main altar is a tribute to the town's history, and the cross is made from local wood.

We also headed to the kangaroo orphanage where we fed the kangaroos and saw one of the joeys being fed.

Who knew that kangaroos loved wasabi peas! Apparently the spiciness of the wasabi mimics the flavours of native bush plants.

This little joey was 4 months old and happily suckled on a bottle like a baby.


Day 6: Coober Pedy - Adelaide

This was a quite a long day's drive. The landscape outside Coober Pedy is very much like the moon, full of little rocky hills and pockmarked craters. Soon we passed into salt lake territory, with many shimmering pools of white on the horizon.

We stopped at Lake Hart and headed down the hill for the short 10min walk to the edge of the lake. Seeing sand adjacent to salt is really quite strange, and reminds us that so much of what we stand on used to be under water.

Incredible expanses of white makes people want to do silly things!

We stopped at Woomera for lunch in the missile park, an interesting collection of relics from a time when the military conducted experiments in the desert.

We stopped by the side of the road to buy fresh prawns, from the Spencer gulf just a skip across the highway.

We drove and drove, and finally got into Adelaide after dark. After almost being T-boned by a car somewhere in suburban Adelaide we arrived at a really nice Airbnb where we could finally warm our bones from the drizzling cold rain.


Day 7: Adelaide

This was pretty much the only day we had on the whole road trip that rained incessantly. It was grey, misty and cold - so far removed from the warmth of the north. Despite the rain, we went with my dad's friends to Hahndorf which was very busy on the weekend.

We went strawberry picking, stuffing our faces with these fat juicy sweet strawberries.

Stopped off for a massive German platter with all the goodies.