Our last night in Australia called for a special meal – and after three months of seeing it on the menu, I decided that I should try one of the “Bush Foods”. At the café of the Aboriginal centre in the Grampians they offered a ‘triple treat’ of Kangaroo Steak, Emu kebab and Crocodile burger – but it didn’t seem right to be munching away on man’s friends (well, even crocs have friends, like little Bob Irwin!) in the middle of a National Park, where even taking a leaf from the ground is an offence.

But now we’re back in the city, sensibilities have been left behind, so it was just a case of choosing which cute, furry, Australian animal to eat! I feel sorry for crocodiles, because they’ve got to live with Steve Irwin hanging around and wrestling them. And emus just don’t look like the kind of bird that you’d get a nice kebab from. So kangaroos seemed to be the ideal candidate – to Australians they are a pest, and they’re definitely not endangered, as we’ve seen them all over the place (remember Pambula campsite and Anglesea golf course?).

So I sat down to dinner at Krave (the best value café we found in all our time in Sydney) and ordered the kangaroo steak. I didn’t know if I’d expected anything special, but what I got was a steak – just a plain, simple steak that could have been beef, lamb or any other kind of ‘normal’ meat. It tasted just like anything else (although, I must be honest, that my mind was dominated by the thoughts of Skippy rather than having a meat-gourmet mindset).

And if I hadn’t known it was kangaroo, I guess I wouldn’t have thought any more of it. But as it was kangaroo, I was a bit intrigued – after all, it’s a bit like eating horsemeat in England – there’s nothing wrong with it, you just don’t do it.

Anyway, back to Skippy. A little bit of research turned up the Aussie Meats Guide to Kangaroo Cuts, which contained this lovely diagram showing where the cuts come from – to help your imagination, I’ve drawn on where my rump steak came from!

So there we go – I’ve enjoyed a nice kangaroo steak, didn’t choke on it, and positively enjoyed it. (Oh, and the girls had pasta!)

It seems a little unfair to end on that note, but it’s where our Australia diary finishes… Read on to see more of our trip as we head into Asia.