Not sure if we love more them because they are free, or because it is so cool to go to the park with some raw meat and cook it on the public BBQs you find pretty much anywhere in the beautiful Australian nature.
In the beginning we couldn’t quite believe that they really are free BBQs, with power or sometimes gas being provided by the respective city council. And they even come and clean them, in summer at least on a daily basis. For budget campers, this type of infrastructure that is ubiquitous across Australia is obviously a jackpot. We first started using them at the beautiful new city park in Cairns that even features an giant infinity pool (since you can’t swim in the sea because of the stingers) – all for free! We cooked a Kangaroo roast and made friends with a nice Polish-Australian family using the neighbouring BBQ. In the days and weeks to follow we experimented a bit with the BBQs and learned that you can do pretty much any type of cooking on this quintessential Australian park equipment: fried eggs in the mornings, pancakes, but they also double as a toaster for bread or as a wok to do a noodle stir-fry right on the heated plate. They were even useful to heat yesterdays leftovers in the pot of our cooker.
If we needed another reason to love Australia, the BBQs would be it.
