We’ve taken the long way round from the Gold Coast, which we left early in July, to Adelaide. Somehow the trip meter was reset part way through so we don’t know our exact distance, but the caravan has travelled 15,000 kilometres and the car quite a bit further: it’s taken 22 weeks. We’ve driven roads that haven’t had a corner for 60 or more kilometres, and at least one road that had 612 bends over 22kms.

We’ve free camped and stayed in many caravan parks and campgrounds and it’s all a learning experience. Caravan parks, for example, have a peculiar etiquette; privacy takes on new meaning. People wander off to the amenities in their dressing gowns or pyjamas and you pretend not to notice. I’m surprised to find some women still put their hair in curlers. Your metal or canvas walls provide only an illusion of privacy: it’s polite to ignore the argument a few meters away, however I do know more about some strangers private lives than I do about some of my own family.

Be careful when, and with whom, you strike up a conversation as it can be hard to escape. You either get their life story, or they want yours. While conversations about great campsites, beautiful views and interesting byways are welcome, long winded conversations on the finer points of tyre pressures can stretch patience.

We can now identify at least five different types of eucalyptus with confidence – there are more than 700, so we have some way to go. While koalas are happy chomping away on leaves, we discover every pub, club, cafe and roadhouse in Australia features Chicken Schnitzel, aka Schnitty on the menu: this is chicken breast run over by a road train, dipped in breadcrumbs seemingly made from the toenail clippings of a koala, and deep fried. And it’s so versatile you can slap on tomato sauce of dubious provenance, top with cheese, incinerate under the griller and you’ve got Chicken Parmigiana, or Parmi. Just add fries, preferably with chicken salt. It’s a unique food group.

Our last couple of weeks have been spent wending our way along the coast of South Australia. We spend a few days at Robe, a charming but unremarkable town that, in the 1850s, was the second busiest port in South Australia. It’s a great town for walking and cycling, but seems best known for weekenders from Adelaide coming to spend money on things with no perceptible value, such as jars full of stones, artisan bowls, shells, signs declaring Home, or beach furniture for city living.

At Meningie on Lake Albert we spend contemplative time watching pelicans with the least aerodynamic fuselages ever, take off and land, and swim around in a majestic flotilla. It’s the biggest breeding colony in Australia and they are mesmerising.

Less mesmerising but many times more frightening is the day we spend hoping fire won’t break out: we’re at Murray Bridge, home of the first bridge over said river, and it reaches 46 degrees C. The wind is very brisk and fans the heat. The Fire Service issues a Catastrophic fire danger warning: if a fire starts they probably can’t control it. There is no escaping the heat. As strange as this country is, the next day the temperature is 18.

Over the five months it barely rained, and then only sparse showers. Some days we lay on the bed with the aircon blasting full tilt but were still too hot. Then there were nights and mornings when the heater was our friend. Russia may be a riddle wrapped in a puzzle inside an enigma, but Australia is a hot coal, wrapped in an iceberg inside a pizza oven.

We’re home for the Summer now – the car and caravan are snuggled into their storage warehouse in Adelaide. It’s lovely to be back where your friends and family live, where you don’t deal daily with worries of fires sweeping the land, or seven year droughts and dying cattle and dust storms, or a climate change denying Government.

But like the man said “We’ll be back”. In April next year, we will reunite with the car and caravan and go west, assuming Australia hasn’t incinerated entirely.

PS – in the meantime, I will get the photo thing sorted and post another story or two on the last couple of weeks in South Australia to keep you going til we hit the road again. And I’ll put up a map of our journey. Stay tuned.