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Cameron <- example of who I am, yours would be different

Jean and Cam's chicken and big zucchini stew

Contrary to what you may have read, there is nothing rotten about Denmark – at least not the one situated on the southern coast of WA. The beaches and forests are beautiful and the zucchinis are big.

It's been nice to relax around a stunning beach or two - for a while there we took to carrying our home on our backs in D'Entrecasteaux National Park.

Not to mention what we've been putting our poor van through in the interests of getting to the start of our hike.

But yes, as good as 2 minute noodles are they don't compare with freshly caught fish or other comforts to be found in the van. All relative I guess. Food in general has been interesting in the van – things like fresh bread are often scarce commodities but on the other hand we regularly happen upon road-side stalls stocking all sorts of goodies for a few bits of spare change. In Denmark you can acquire home grown zucchinis of mass destruction for only $1 under the drop your change in a box honour system – free if you are a person without honour.

And zucchini as they say is the mother of all invention – or maybe, if life gives you zucchinis make zucchini stew. In any case, on with the soup...

Ingredients

• chicken
• very big zucchini
• can of creamed corn
• dash of soy sauce
• Piri Piri
• ¾ cup of water

1. Cut off a big enough portion of the zucchini that you will be able to fit the rest of it in your fridge. Note this may vary depending on the size of your zucchini, the size of your fridge and the amount of chilled beer you are prepared to drink there and then to make room for the zucchini. In our case it was about a quarter of a zucchini of mass destruction to fit into a perfectly working Engel with no limit on the amount of beer we were prepared to drink for a good cause.
2. Allow a sociably acceptable amount of time to pass and pour yourself a wine and drink it. Repeat this step as necessary throughout the cooking process until you have achieved the desired consistency. If you have no income because you live in a van and the wine is sufficiently cheap you may need to add a little lemonade or if you have no lemonade just try adjusting your face to the position I have assumed in the photo. You will have achieved the desired consistency when there is a slight tingling feeling in your toes.
3. Poach the chicken in the water with a little soy sauce and the Piri Piri. I am assuming you have a cupboard half full of various spice mixes that all include the same ingredients but differ in that they are called Piri Piri rather than Thai Cacophony, Tibetan Yak Seasoning or similar. Choose one that you had pushed to the back of the cupboard because the toy grinder on it ceased to work some time ago. Forcibly rip the grinding mechanism off the jar and dump the entire contents into the stock. (I am also assuming you had already consumed ¾ of the spice mix before the grinder malfunctioned.) When the chook's cooked take it out and keep it somewhere warm but not under your armpit.
4. Cut most of the skin off the zucchini and chop it into pieces before cooking it in the chicken stock. You want the pieces with the skin to hang around but the rest should just dissolve into a similar consistency to Gwa Tong. (If you are not Chinese and don't know what Gwa Tong is then marry a Chinese person. If they won't have you then a green porridge kind of thickness is what you are looking for.) You don't need very much water – the zucchini is full of it (like myself you might say).
5. Ok, heading for home plate. Add the chicken back to the stock along with a little salt and pepper. Put the creamed corn back in the cupboard because you are not going to need it and scoop the stew into bowls then eat it. It's even better than it sounds.

That's Denmark summed up. Next we are heading east towards Albany which has whales so big you can't miss them – although I believe they've stopped harpooning them. In any case I am going to need a larger pot. Talk to you then. Oh yeah, happy Australia Day.

That's Entertainment

Whilst the rest of Australia has been taking their inflatable mattresses out to ride rapids down streets more usually known for dust than water we've been plagued by fire. For the past couple of weeks camp sites and national parks along our path have been inaccessible due to fire with such regularity I have begun to suspect it is Jean who is lighting them.

...which brings me to the things we do to keep ourselves occupied. Whilst we do have some mod cons along with us such as a year's supply of movies to watch in bed,

...and a 600 Watt coffee grinder and associated coffee debris

(hey, we're roughing it but we're not barbarians) in general we make do without most of the trappings of our sedentary lives. Some trappings we didn't mean to do without - like cold beer. The fridge/freezer is still under-performing to such an extent it wouldn't surprise me if it got picked for Australia for the next Test and also sadly the combination ice-crusher that came with the coffee grinder has proven to have quite a dependency on the fridge/freezer.

Stop Press - Manjimump electricians have restored the Legend in Reliability!!!

Even though the fridge didn't do much for cold beer it did form a barrier against the rest of our stuff sliding all over the van. Hopefully it will be back from the Engel fixer in Manjimup in the next day or two.

So what do we do with ourselves? Jean has her ukelele and often finds herself accompanied whether she wants it or not by my melodica.  (Speaking of unsolicited backup we found out on New Year's Eve this year that all of the residents of Bridgetown fit into one of two categories – those who play along with the band on pretend harmonicas and those who brought their real harmonica along.) I've been teaching myself a couple of new fishing knots and Jean likes bird watching, playing the ukelele, arson and crocheting. I was a bit suspicious at first when I saw that Jean's bird watching list included duck, magpie and emu but since then she has progressed to noting creatures such as Sooty Oyster Catchers and the Red Wattle Bird.

[ ] duck  [x] emu  [ ] magpie  [ ] sooty oyster catcher

We did stop near Pemberton to play one of the local fruit machines

...but we got the sense that it wasn't going to pay out any time soon. There is of course always the opportunity to improve our standard of living by fine tuning the van. I recently invented the pictured hydraulic system for keeping the van flat when parked on a slope.

Actually it is very hard to tell whether the van is flat or not since most of my woodwork inside the van resembles that done by the guys who worked on the Etamoogah pub. Speaking of woodwork – we weren't sure after climbing one of the old fire-watching trees near Manjimup whether our hearts were pumping due to exertion or sheer fear.

We hadn't climbed one of these for ten years since we first came to Perth - which was only just long enough for it to seem like a reasonable idea again. Thankfully I seem to have kicked my recent fainting habit and I was very careful not to stand on Jean's sore finger on the way back down.

See yas when we do.

Self Portrait Series

Bored passenger - near Beedelup Falls

Peaceful Bay

Self portrait with emu and place that's got TV - Donnelly River

Take us to your leader - Elephant Rock in background