Roo.

Clare Valley, Southern Australia.

“There! Can you see him?” Kent, our lovely fixer, guide and general goodhearted Aussie know-all, is pointing out the cab window of the 4x4 towards a neat row of vines on a rolling hillside in Clare Valley.

Between the grey, gnarly vines, just shooting green in the Spring sunshine, is a dark shadow. It’s a fair way off and camouflaged by the soil... but there’s something there alright. We stare at the shadow. ...The shadow stares back.

“It is! It’s a ‘roo!” screams my fellow traveller, C.

Cameras are quickly drawn. In the 4x4 there’s a genuine flurry of excitement. The kind of excitement you can only get from people who have never really seen a kangaroo in the flesh before. On TV yes. In a wildlife park maybe. Once, I even dressed in a kangaroo outfit to promote a certain Aussie beer, but this... this was our first proper wild ‘roo in the flesh. 

Well. 

Not strictly our first. That honour would have to go to the ‘roo in the Kangaroo and Mushroom pie served in the restaurant at the Skillogalee Winery a few hours earlier. Lunch stop on Day 2 of our voyage across Australia.

We’re following The Explorer’s Way. A route that stretches from Adelaide, in the south, all the way to Darwin, in the north. Three thousand kilometers of Australia with Alice Springs almost exactly slam bang at the half-way mark.

Yesterday we were in Adelaide. Lovely, laid-back, gleaming, friendly Adelaide. We were kicking off the jet-lag with flat whites and carrot cake in the Central Market; taking in the air and the views around the marina and the beach-front (long, empty, white beaches), taking lunch outdoors in the warm sun at one of the city’s (seemingly) billions of good restaurants; and generally acclimatising to being officially In Aus. 

It’s a gentle introduction. Adelaide buzzes with a quite, under-stated, joie de vivre. New art galleries and museums and state libraries, a vibrant university, new public spaces, and the rebuilding of the Oval, Adelaide’s famous cricket ground, demonstrate a civic pride, optimism, and belief on this small city. Everyone we meet is charming. Couldn’t do more for three travellers from the old country with bleary eyes.The food, the coffee, the tea-bars (tea is the new thing apparently. “They’ve moved on from coffee” advises Kent. I’m not sure who he means by they, but I assume he means the hip young things we can see choosing between Arctic Fire and Madagascan Vanilla at T2, a bright, young palace dedicated to all things tea-related.

Evening, we head to a restaurant called Grace The Establishment. Weirdly, we are waited-on by a striking young woman, J, we had seen on the street earlier in the day. J walked past us at lunchtime, head down, but looking like a model in every respect. She could, should, be on a catwalk. She waits tables. 

We chat about Adelaide. About London. She says she wants to go to London. See Europe.  I totally understand wander lust... but still. I look around and I can’t help but wonder ... why? 

You can stand on a street in London for days on end and never see the same person twice. Here, you can chance on someone and find them waiting your table a few hours later. No wonder they call Adelaide the 20 minute city (as in: everything’s  20 minutes away). For a state capital, Adelaide is a small city. But its heart is big. The place positively fizzes. The bars hop to the sound of salsa music late into the night and if it wasn’t for the jet-lag I’m sure we’d have been dancing the night away with the best of them. ...Well that’s my excuse, anyway.

So now our business lies North. We’ve come 140-odd km to the Clare Valley. Home of Australian Riesling, made by people like Dave and Diana Palmer, who own and run Skillogalee in the Skilly Hills south of Clare. And whose grilled hallumi and roasted vegetable salad will last in my memory a long, long time. 

From here we head up to Melrose, and then on to Wilpena. 

But back to the ‘roo. Before you can say hang on a mo while I change lenses, a lean, grey-brown shadow hops away out of sight, and is lost among the vines.

“Yagggh,” shrugs Kent, turning the ignition on the 4x4. “You’ll see plenty of them yet. No worries”