Mark Twain said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” It is in this spirit that I asked Sarajane Pfrommer to contribute from time to time a series of travelogues as guest blog entries on this site and beyond. 

Sara Pfrommer is a UCLA educated attorney with a venerable career.  She is an outstanding credit to the legal profession. I say this not only because of her brilliance, evident to any judge, attorney, or lay person who’s discussed a case or legal issue with her, but also for the many worthy causes she’s handled and continues to handle pro bono.  She has traveled widely in the past decade, keeping a journal and other writings inspired by her travels.  She will answer all questions and comments.  Please enjoy – James

My good friend James and I have gone back and forth a little about what story I should tell first, in my capacity as guest travel blogger.   I chose the following, for a couple of reasons.   First of all, if you are not an experienced traveler but want really want to give it a try, a place like Australia is a great place to start – it’s easy and friendly and everyone speaks English.   So I thought I would start my blog as I started my travels – in Australia.  

The following little snippet also foreshadows (that’s the word a writer like James would use – “foreshadows”) several things that will be recurring themes.   My love for historical detail.   My love for a good road trip.  My desire to seek out oddities, including especially odd things to eat – believe me, the ice cream in this story was only the beginning .  . .

The Great Ocean Road, which starts an hour or so west of Melbourne, is on everyone’s list of best scenic drives in the world, and rightfully so.   I have to get to Adelaide for the start of my tour to Uluru and the Great Ocean Road is as good a way to get there as any, so I book a two-day tour and am off.

The Great Ocean Road is an Australian Heritage listed landmark, extending 151 miles from Torquay to Allenford.   It was built by soldiers returning from World War I and is considered the world’s largest war memorial.  It features several small towns that cater mostly to vacationers wanting to escape the heat of the Melbourne summer.  This is a goal with which I have considerable empathy after the hellacious temperatures last week during the Australian Open – the temperatures exceeded 44 degrees Celsius, which translates into Fahrenheit as too (expletive deleted) hot.    Ball boys fainting on the court, players cursing. . . but that’s another story for another time.     

One of these small towns is Apollo Bay.  In addition to being a lovely laid-back little beach town, Apollo Bay is known for Dooley’s Ice Cream Parlor, which is in turn known as one of the few places in the universe where you can find vegemite ice cream.   According to Wikipedia, vegemite is a “dark brown Australian food paste made from leftover brewers’ yeast extract with various vegetable and spice additives, developed by Cyril P. Callister in Melbourne, Victoria in 1922.”   Australians love it.  I think it’s revolting.             

In Australia (and in the UK, where they adore Vegemite’s first cousin, marmite), the natives slather it on toast and sandwiches and slurp it down with gusto.   I think you have to develop a taste for it from the cradle, where your parents have forced it on you when you had no choice but to eat it.  I cannot imagine anyone voluntarily choosing to ingest this vile substance, and I will eat practically anything.

I can hear my Australian and British friends raising their voices in protest, insisting that it is lovely and delicious.  They are wrong.   But I am willing to give the Vegemite ice cream a try – maybe all the stuff needs to be palatable is to have a bunch of sugar and cream added to it.   I will admit that the ice cream is somewhat tastier than Vegemite itself, but trust me – there is a lot of room between “somewhat tastier than Vegemite” and something you would actually want to eat.

The kid behind the counter is happy to serve me a different, edible flavor and also graciously pulls the Vegemite ice cream container out of the freezer case so I can take a better picture of it.  This is the highest and best use of Vegemite ice cream, I submit – to pose for a photograph to go into my album of “oddities from around the world.”   Enough said.