What is roadtripping in Australia like, you might ask. Great news! We did it and we can tell you.
This wasn’t outback roatripping, which is a whole ‘nother bag of rocks. This was Queensland coast roadtripping. First, there are sometimes farmer’s markets, and if you get lucky they take place at the right time and place to grab some delicious food for later. We went to a market on the Sunshine Coast, a very relaxed and family friendly place. We were not expecting a large variety of bananas, but bananas we got. Very tasty ones too.
We definitely were not expecting to try some of the nicest cheeses we’ve had in a while. Australia is not especially well known for cheese, and White Gold Creamery has set out to correct this issue. They homebrew their cheese varieties, experimenting for months at a time until something good comes up. Their stated goal is not to compete with the super-market cheese aisle, but to offer different varieties and pleasant twists on famous styles. Natalie went straight to the mushroom-ripening brie, which gets a stronger and stronger mushroom taste as it ages. They also offered cultured butter – butter that has been to the opera – and we took a block to go with us.
After shopping around we went behind the market to a local park full of man-made lakes. A mid-morning swim was in order. No pictures of the lakes were taken, suffice to say every park would do well to have a couple. Next, there are sometimes very big things along the way. Australia is kind of famous for this in fact, having about one hundred and fifty big things in the country. Our big thing visit was the Big Banana. We brought out some of the regular-sized bananas for scale.
If you’re lucky you’ll meet your hair spirit animal. I met mine at a farm/restaurant along the coast. The restaurant was pretty expensive, but they have a free-pick macadamia nut orchard, so that was cool. We grabbed a handful and Natalie got these pictures of me and this yak.
On any good Australian roadtrip, there will be meat pies. We searched high and low and googled for the best place to get some. Off the highway a bit sits an old house that is actually a restaurant inside, Fredo’s Pies. There the very kind cashier gave us a pile of meat pies and best wishes for the road. These were amazing, flaky and chewy with the meat cooked for hours till it was tender and delicious. The kangaroo pie is the specialty to try.
The last thing to see along the road is the sunset. These tend to be, almost universally, amazing in Australia. The open skies lend themselves to great cloudscapes and the sunset paints them in fantastic colors. Our night was rainy and we took the sunset photos from the car, so the amazing doesn’t translate so well, but we were treated to a 20 minute red and orange light show on the road.
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