How to cook kangaroo tail

How to cook kangaroo tail

This will probably be my shortest post ever, as it's pretty simple.

Where's my tail?

Out in the bush (i.e, west of the Divide), supermarkets often sell kangaroo tail. Big monsters of things, they're usually in the freezer section and are like a massive hairy club. They don't seem to make it to the city (certainly, I've never seen them), and I reckon it's because people in the bush know they're onto a good thing. Most kangaroo meat is very lean (so quite healthy for a red meat), but the tail is one of the few places that has a fair bit of fat, adding succulence and a rich flavour. Several times I've heard Aboriginal people describe it as "a meal in itself". It's messy and very tactile to eat, like chowing down on a crab (you'll need a good wash afterwards), but good fun and dead easy to cook on a campfire.

Method

First, take your tail (defrosted) and burn the hair off. This involves either chucking it on a fire for a minute or two, or somehow holding it over a fire and singeing it until black all over.
Then wrap it in alfoil. Wrap it well - one layer probably isn't enough. If you've cut the tail into sections, it'll look like a few garlic breads, or otherwise it'll be one lovely big silver present.

Then put it on the coals of the fire. Heap other coals over it.

After about 40 minutes, it should be done. I was recently told one of the best ways to check it is to stand on it, and if it is a bit squishy, it is done. If still hard, then put it back on. You can also try opening up a bit and seeing if the meat is cooked.

Then, let it cool a little (that fat will be quite hot) before attempting to wrestle with your meal.

Bon appetite.

Aileron Roadhouse

Aileron Roadhouse

A bit over an hour north of Alice, this dusty truckstop is about to have a makeover. Of sorts. Well, some grass, anyway.

Big Man Walk, Aileron Roadhouse

Picture Alice Springs on a map of Australia. If you're as geographically challenged as I didn't think I was, you'll probably put it much further south than it is. Even though I've been there several times before, I honestly hadn't realised how far north it is until I drove up the Stuart Highway. It's only about half an hour out of Alice that you cross the Tropic of Capricorn. Yes, that tropic – the line that runs through Rockhampton and cuts the west coast between Exmouth and Carnarvon.
Another 40 minutes or so up the road and you come to Aileron Roadhouse. In many ways it's barely distinguishable from any of the other roadhouses up this way – a dusty area to park your van or tent, a few rooms to rent, a bar (of course – this is the NT afterall), a general store, and some standard pub fare. Actually, the food is better than most (the roast chicken was a huge feast and quite delicious) and the rooms aren't bad, although mine needed some serious airing when I got there (it stank).

Big Blackfella, Aileron Roadhouse

But it has an incredible 17m high statue of an Anmatjere man, holding his spear, at the top of a hill behind the roadhouse. Costing about $120,000, the statue was built by Mark Egan and erected in 2005. There's a short little climb up the hill at the back (a leisurely 20 minutes return), which is worth it because it offers a great view over the surrounding plain. You'll also find out how big the AILERON letters are near the Big Blackfella, and see how impressive a figure he is.
In 2008, Mark added a huge woman and child, hunting goanna, down beside the roadhouse.

Woman and child hunting goanna

A working cattle station, Aileron has a couple of other great features that you can explore. From the top of the hill you can look over the old racetrack, built 1940s, or explore it via the bush tracks. It's still used for the Aileron Bush Weekend, held 4-5 April next year, which includes a rodeo. And if you haven't been to a bush rodeo yet, make sure you put it on your bucket list, as they are extraordinary spectacles.
Strangely, I felt like a run, so went out to the track and ran a few miles. I didn't whinny though.
Two other things happened during my brief overnight stay there earlier this month: the owner revealed that Aileron is getting a more secure water supply, which means they will endeavour to grow some grass to keep the dust down and some more plants to pretty the place up a little (although they've been warned by regulars not to change it too much); and photographer Heath Holden and I were lucky to witness the full lunar eclipse in those clear skies.

Blood moon and the Southern Cross, from Aileron Roadhouse

Through our camera lenses we played with the blood-orange moon and a windmill for a while, then walked up the hill and experimented with the statue looking at the eclipse. All good fun, but the best bit was putting away the cameras up that hill, pulling out a couple of cold XXXX, and just watching the eclipse beside the Big Blackfella, from his vantage point watching over the whole region.
Ahhh. That's NT bliss.

Camping at Devils Marbles

Camping at Devils Marbles (Karlu Karlu)

Not the best camp ground in the world, but the sunset and sunrise makes it worth sleeping at this magic spot.

Devils Marbles, just off the Stuart Highway, Northern Territory.

It's no wonder that brilliant Aussie landscape photographer Ken Duncan only refers to this classic  landmark as "God's Marbles". Pretty much in the middle of the Northern Territory, the marbles are a spectacular sight and combine so much of what we photographers love about our arid regions: brilliant red rock that gets redder at sunset and sunrise, a fairly harsh, flat landscape around it, and fantastic geometric shapes that are a photographer's dream.
It has a few Indigenous names, but the most commonly sprouted is Karlu Karlu. For a few years many of us were told that to the "Aboriginal people" (not sure which group) these large 1.6 billion-year-old granite formations were the Rainbow Serpent's eggs. No one I spoke to seems to know where this idea came from, and the Alyawarre people I interviewed recently referred to instead a vast Dreaming figure who wore a hair belt. The hair belt became dirty, and as he spun around, bits of mud and hair came flying off the belt to form Karlu Karlu.

Sunrise, Karlu Karlu

To the casual visitor, the site is "in the middle of nowhere". It's a decent drive of four hours from Alice, and an hour from Tennant Creek, so many people who are passing through tend to go there in the middle of the day. It's pretty much the worst time to be there. It's undoubtedly hot (with little shade anywhere) and the boulders themselves are at their colourless worst.
If you want to see them early morning and late evening, you can either stay at the Wauchope Hotel about 15 minutes drive down the road (nothing to rave about, but clean sheets and a telly), or you can camp.

Under an almost full moon

The campground is right at the Devils Marbles. I slept in a swag, and with an almost full moon, had a glorious, ever-changing view of the features all night. Great for star-trail photography etc, and just being in such a wonderful place. It's no effort to get up for sunrise and you don't need to drive anywhere - you can just pop out of bed and you are right in the area. There's plenty of opportunity then to walk around the huge area and look at many of the features as the sun plays its golden light over the surfaces, and the shadows gradually change.
The campground, however, has no water and very little shade. There are probably two campsites that have a decent tree, but the other 20 or so don't - so either get there early and grab the good sites, or expect to have no shade! Once again, there's no water (and if you are there during the middle of the day, you'll need some), but there are pit toilets. The one furthest away from the campsites (only about 100m away) is not surprisingly the least smelly.
There are little fireplaces at most of the campsites, but you'll need to bring your own firewood.
Overall, it was a pleasure to finally get to this spot of which I've seen so many photos  (and now have so many photos of my own). I'm really glad I camped there, to hang around for the sunset and sunrise, and fully recommend sleeping in a swag, which you can set up with your own personal view of the marbles, in the hotel of a thousand stars.

Sunset, Karlu Karlu

www.kensbigbackyard.com.au