The Melbourne Age - Good Weekend Magazine

For those of us who find it hard to be more than five minutes' drive away from cafe latte and warm Turkish bread, travelling must almost
inevitably involve destinations replete with cafes, wood-fired pizza joints, Italian bakeries and sushi bars.
For that reason, the outback has never been much of a consideration (where does one get one's balsamic vinegar?). Which has seemed such a pity -all that rugged, spectacular scenery and extra- ordinary history just going begging.
No doubt Andrew Dwyer had us in mind when he came up with his brain- child: a highly civilised outback expedi- tion that takes one off the beaten track with a minimal sense of deprivation. And Diamantina Tours' food and wine are so good that they even ease the pain of irregular showers and going to the "toilet" armed with a shovel.
Dwyer's expedition (the word "tour" seems inappropriate as one goes well beyond sight- seeing) covers just over 3,400 km of country, most of which is serious four-wheel drive terrain. Starting from Adelaide, it tracks north via Lake Eyre South, William Creek and Oodnadatta to Dalhousie Mound Springs. A west-east crossing of the Simpson Desert takes just over three days, and
ends at Birdsville in Queensland. The trek back south traverses the starkly beautiful Flinders Ranges, with a final night at the historic town of Parachilna before the 500-km drive to Adelaide.
Dwyer is a knowledgeable guide, having worked with various Aboriginal groups in formulating residential study programs, as well as accompanying field research groups from the Australian National University and the Museum of South Australia. These experiences, together with established relationships with local station owners and stockmen, means that the expedition visits archaeological, Aboriginal and other historic sites (some on private properties) which are off the beaten tourist track.
The expedition travels in four-wheel drive vehicles with a trailer. This compact box unfolds magically into a fully stocked kitchen, complete with an ice box-style fridge and gas stove. Its design not only ensures safe travel over the wild terrain, but means that biscuits and chips stay in one piece, despite bouncing over an awful lot of sand dunes and river beds.
The fridge is filled with vegetables packed in Everfresh bags, fresh herbs, butter, cheese, fresh milk, vacuum-packed meats and good-quality wine -no Chateau Le Box here.
The 13-day, expedition traverses some of the country's most fascinating landscapes. The most gruelling part is the crossing of the Simpson Desert, the world's largest sand-dune desert. Petroleum exploration of the Simpson (which started in the 1950s) resulted in the development of seismic exploration tracks which have made tourism possible. The main tracks used by visitors are the French Line and the easier-driving clay- capped Rig Road. The Diamantina route takes the lesser-used W AA line and Knolls Track.
Despite what you might think, the desert land- scape is not just unending sameness. As Adelaide conservationist C. Warren Bonython noted in 1973, after a 28-day walk of the desert with Victorian naturalist and painter Charles McCubbin: "Friends had originally said to me, 'You will be bored to tears by the monotony of the Simpson Desert'. How wrong they were...the fact is that something of interest was constantly turning up, the landscape was always changing and there were so manyu views of scenic beauty unexpectedly appearing." Sitting down for one of our gourmet desert dinners, McCubbin's words came to mind too: "Evening after evening we watched the sun go down in a blaze of goold, while in the east the earth's blue shadow climbed into the darkening sky. We would see the first pinpoints of light appear, shy at first, growing in brightness, till all the wide heavens were washed in stars. In the vast stillness of the desert night, sitting by our campfire on the rippled sand....and all our cares would drift away." Strange that in that barren landscape of desert and mountain, seemingly a million miles from nowhere, with deckchairs, plastic wineglasses and a camp oven, we had a culinary experience worthy of at least four stars. The mood somehow echoed the words of English writer and politician Lord Chesterfield, who noted in a letter to his son in 1746 that, "Courts and camps are the only places to learn the world in".

Gourmet Travelling

Amazingly enough, all the expeditions meals are freshly prepared. Dwyer's cooking style covers a range of cuisines, including Thai, Italian, and East meets West. While the kitchen has a gas burner, most of the4 cooking is done in camp ovens on hot coals. Seafood usually dominates the first day. We lunched on a salad with Coffin Bay Oysters and smoked salmon. Dinner started with tom yam goong fuoll of Moreton Bay bugs, king prawns, deep sea perch and New Zealand green lipped mussels, followed by green chicken curry. Thereafter, red meat main courses were the norm. These included roo fillet with quandong chilli sauce, eye fillet with shitake mushroom sauce and stir fry beef in oyster sauce. One night Dwyer served a mixed peppercorn-crusted medium rare roast loin of lamb, redolent of garlic and rosemary. It had been cooked in the camp oven and was accompanied by a camp oven braised mixture of pumpkin, parsnips, celeriac and onion. The standard Diamantina camp breakfast comprises freshly squeezed orange juice, a choice of cereals, fresh fruit, Melbourne's Natural Tucker Bakery bread and freshly brewed coffee. Lunch is light and simple, and might include pita bread stuffed with tomatoes, Kalamata olives and fetta cheese.