Friday 9/7

Search for a car... a decent internet connection … and we encounter our first kangaroo

Looking for a car

     Our hostel has two computers that connect to the internet. You get one hour free, then it's $2 an hour, not a bad price. (The Australian dollar is currently worth about 7% more than the US dollar, so for our purposes we basically think of them as being the same value). The problem is the demand for the computers is quite high, and during the day it's nearly impossible to shag one. So after breakfast we went to the nearby McDonalds, got a coffee and went up to the rooftop veranda to use their free WiFi.

     Our job for the day was to find a car for our travels around Australia. I specifically want a Land Cruiser for a few reasons. Of course it would be awesome to drive one of the world's best 4WD around the outback. But the Land Cruiser is also the most common car in the outback so parts and repairs are relatively easy. It has a rugged build, able to handle the thousands of miles of corrugated sand and gravel roads that would shake apart a more delicate car. And it's big enough inside to build in a bed if we want. And it would be awesome to drive one of the world's best 4WD around the outback... oh, I said that already. I had found a couple on the internet while still in the US, but the one with all the camping gear had already sold and I talked myself out of the other cool old one as being too expensive and too much work to get it ready to go. So now we had to find something else.

Looking for an internet connection

     The coffee at McD's was better than the WiFi. There are three different web sites I've been using to look for used cars. I could only communicate effectively with one of them. Fortunately it's the best one. So using the crippled WiFi I searched the site and found a few possibilities and recorded them in our notebook. We sent off an email, then headed out to check the three used car places in the area that work with backpackers. While using the WiFi there were birds begging for food, two different kinds that I've never seen before, both quite exotic. The larger type has a haunting ghostly warbling call they use to communicate with each other. I'm gonna have to buy a bird book. It's strange being in country where I can't recognize any of the birds, other than the pigeons and sea gulls.

A possible find

     At a nearby parking garage there's a car market where backpackers can go to sell or buy vehicles. There was an older Land Cruiser being sold by a Belgian girl, Romy, who has been traveling and working around Australia for the past years but is now desperate to sell because she has plane tickets for a Monday flight back home. It has some rust, needs a few minor repairs, and a funky Dead Head paint job, but comes with camping gear and tools. I looked it over, examining fluids, belts, and hoses and checking the U-joints and suspension and looking for fluid leaks. We took it for a test drive in a nearby park and it seemed tight going over the speed bumps, and the clutch and brakes and steering seemed good. It was a well worn beast, but nothing that frightened someone used to driving vans for up to 300,000 miles.

     She wants $4900 for it and could probably be talked down a bit. But a problem arose when we were at the library later using the internet to check out the process for buying a car registered in Western Australia, which this one is. While it's supposed to be easy to transfer WA cars, at least according to Romy, there are too many shady aspects of making it happen which we're not willing to do. So back to the search.

The hunt continues

     We went into four different used car places in Kings Cross and talked to people at each, one Russian, one French, and for the first time since getting here two real Australians. We learned a lot about the used car business hear Down Under, but except for some leads didn't find a Land Cruiser. We will have to get back on the internet, do some searching and make some calls. There all kinds of possibilities in the Sydney region, like a good hunter we just need to learn the terrain and be patient.

Hunger

     We've settled into an interesting eating pattern here. We eat a bowl of cereal early at the hostel, then spend the day going about our business in the city. By five o'clock we're quite hungry. Today we decided to go to the grocery store and prepare a meal at the hostel. Woolworth's is one of the big grocery store chains here and we found one near our hostel. Walking the aisles and looking at prices we were amazed at how much higher they are than back home. Generally food items are two to three times as high, bags of potatoes for $1 a pound, broccoli $3lb, milk $5 a gallon, small cans of tuna $1, etc. I guess we're Aldi spoiled. Meat and fish isn't too bad, ground beef is $5/lb, steaks $10-$12. Lamb is cheaper than in the US, about the same price here as beef. But boneless/skinless chicken breasts are about $6/lb.

We encounter our first kangaroo...

     … and eat it.

     The grocery store also had a wide variety of cuts of kangaroo. It's ruby red, moist, and practically devoid of fat. The selling points for eating roo are the same as eating venison, low in fat, high in omega 3, and too damn many of them running around on the roads and messing up cars. I had decided I wanted to make stroganoff in the hostel kitchen that night so we bought a one kilo package of ground roo (2.2 lb) for $8, enough for two nights.

     The kitchen is a very busy place starting around 7 pm, but as it was only a little after 5 we nearly had the place for ourselves. I fried up a bunch of lovely mushrooms in olive oil and garlic, added the roo with lots of paprika, black pepper, and a little salt, then just as the rice was about done added sour cream. With our box of Oz Cab Sav it was a delightful dinner. And by then the place was filling up and we were entertained by the bee hive buzz of our fellow guests.

      So how was the kangaroo? Of course probably any ground meat would taste good made into stroganoff. And rooganoff tasted just fine. But not as good as beef or lamb or venison. Or maybe even pork, turkey or chicken. It's very lean, like venison, but doesn't have that good earthy/grassy flavor, maybe because of the roo diet. I don't really know what they eat. Also, it was a little gristly, but that probably depends on how much of the roo was thrown into the grinder. But really, it tasted just fine. We'll try other cuts later on to get an idea of how it tastes on its own.

     A group of English kids were sitting at the next table over, and had turned Uno into a drinking game. Almost all of their conversation pertained to prior drunken exploits. So Much Fun! I must say that with all the wine I had drunk while cooking and eating dinner I could have been a candidate for a drunken exploit myself if I wasn't so sleepy. We were in bed by eight, and congratulated ourselves for being able to stay up that late.