Currently our hired Toyota Hi-Ace camper smells of a combination of damp trainers, crushed cherries and cooked meat. I am writing this stuff just before going to sleep so experience tells me that this select odor is destined to become a little more intense as the hours pass.
Today we spent most of the day in Canberra, visiting the excellent Questacon, a hands-on science type family day out type place that kids love and parents love because kids love. Set across six different discovery areas it was a combination of science marvels, optical and sensory illusions and even had an earthquake demonstration room. It was a great way to spend a rainy day.
We left Canberra and drove the 120km south to Cooma where, after checking in to our campsite, we set about buying some food to cook for dinner. Unlike Britain Woolworths is a big thing in Australia and we had no trouble in finding the Cooma branch, which had everything you would expect to find in a well-stocked supermarket, including lots of meat for the barbecue-mad Australian. All the campsites we have stayed in so far have had camp kitchen areas which include a barbecue on which people can do their best to burn all sorts of different meats. On leaving Woolworths we found ourselves in possession of eight burgers, three steaks, four chicken breasts and eight kangaroo sausages. Oh, and a bag of exotic salad leaves so as to prevent scurvy. Back at the campsite Edwin and I set-to to do the man thing and try to burn the meat to even more death, and made a pretty good job of it. Following a tip from a Canadian bloke we even barbecued the exotic leaves too. All was well.
Eating the fare was a little more tricky though. Back at the van all had been plunged into darkness. The electric hook-up had seemed to stop working. It had also started raining. Lexi had also started sneezing. The barbecued meat had started to get cold. As quickly as possible we decamped dripping children to the camp kitchen area and ate as best we could hoping the full tummies would sort out the electricity problem. It didn't, but it did help the rain stop. Damp and sleepy children plus a sneezing wife and lots of left over cooked meat meant that help was needed, so I rang the hire company's helpline. That was when I began talking to a very nice man called Chris. Everywhere in Australia is a long way away and it sounded like I was speaking to " a very long way away." It also sounded like I had phoned at a busy time as the background noise in the Camperman office appeared to include lots of good natured office banter, radios and general mayhem. Taken all together it gave me the impression of having phoned up a bit of a riotous party, one that I quite fancied joining in. After ten minutes on the phone following nice Chris's advice he established, probably because he had dealt with idiot drama teachers before, that the trip switch on the campsite pitch electricity box had tripped and by me simply switching it the right way all would became good again. All did become good and we parted on the best of terms.
Thankfully that meant the children could see where to chuck their wet clothes and selves before climbing into bed, Lexi could see to blow her nose and the cooked meat could chill for sandwiches for tomorrow. The floor of the van could also continue to look like a roadkill event thanks to Edwin stepping on most of a 1kg bag of cherries. Marvellous.
But all that still doesn't answer the kangaroo question. We have seen plenty of evidence of kangaroos so far this holiday. We have seen it in its freshly chilled and cling film wrapped state in supermarket fridges and we have seen it in various stages of decomposition by the sides of various roads, along with wombats, in roadkill situations. What we haven't yet seen are living ones. There are some in Australia, aren't there or is the kangaroo an Australian hoax?