Modern day marinades go head-to-head with ancient Aboriginal methods. Which man will make the tastiest marsupial meal? By Lisa Upton

The sun rises early in the Kimberley and on this particular morning so does my partner, Greg. At 5am he is sitting at the table in our caravan, chanting a mantra, while flicking through the pages of his Stephanie Alexander cookbook. “I will not be defeated, I will not be defeated,” he mutters. Greg loves Stephanie. She has never, he claims, failed her. But now their relationship is being tested. He needs a decent recipe for wallaby leg, and he’s got stiff competition.

The wallaby lost his leg and his life about 10 hours earlier. We’d been invited out to a barbecue by a lovely Aboriginal couple we met in Kununurra, Brenda and Chris Garstone. “What would you like us to bring?” asked Greg.

“Have you ever tried kangaroo?” Chris replied. We hadn’t. The next thing I knew Chris was packing his rifles into the back of our vehicle and he and Greg and two of the Garstone kids were off into the sunset, driving along a bush track that straddles the NT and WA border. Who’d have thought the sunroof in our Volvo XC70 would be perfect to shine a spotlight through?

The hunters arrived back three hours later, not with a kangaroo, as Brenda had requested, but the hind legs and tail of a good-sized wallaby, skinned and in plastic bags. Greg hastily offered to cook one of the legs, a decision he now regrets.

While Greg is cursing Stephanie’s lack of suitable wallaby recipes, a friend calls from the city to find out about life on the road. She seems shocked to hear Greg has been hunting. “But has he ever done anything like this before?” she asks. I remind her that he’s a country boy who spent his youth killing things.

“If the Buddhists are right I’ll be returned to earth as a dung beetle,” Greg quips, before returning to his cookbook.

After much anxiety and indecisiveness, he finally decides on a bastardised version of a Stephanie recipe. He chops up ginger, garlic and shallots and throws them into the pot with the leg before adding lemon juice, soy and plum sauce. He leaves the dish to marinate.

At midday we follow the Garstones – Chris, Brenda, three of their four kids and two cousins – out towards their favourite spot on the Ord River. This is home to some of Australia’s most spectacular scenery. The brilliant rust red hills are painted in places with soft greens – it is desert landscape with a tropical twist. Every so often, the fat, bloated form of the boab appears on the scene. “They have to be the ugliest tree in Australia,” Greg says. “It looks like Alexander Downer with branches.” It is only later, when I read more about the boab, that I learn its botanical name – adansonia gregorii, the Gregory Tree.

We turn onto a dirt road and make our way to the Garstone’s regular barbecue spot. It is called Ivanhoe Crossing. The men get to work building a fire for their wallaby cook-off. Chris’s plan is to cook the tail in the traditional Aboriginal way, building a fire and burying the wallaby and the hot coals in the earth. Greg will cook the marinated leg on a hotplate.

The men are friendly and light-hearted, but there’s also an undercurrent of competition. In their bravado, they start a small grass fire, which quickly threatens to become a major bushfire. For what seems like a very long time they run around with a tin pot and an old blanket trying to extinguish the flames. They eventually succeed but their masculine credibility is in shreds.

Brenda and I watch this comical scene from the river where the Garstone kids are swimming in the fast-flowing rapids above the crossing. “Are there crocodiles in this water?” I ask Brenda.

“There are crocodiles upstream and downstream but they don’t like the rapids. We swim here all the time and don’t have any problems.” I am not reassured by this information, but I am helpless to stop my toddler, Joe, who insists on being in the water with the big kids. I keep him close to the edge and squeeze his hand tightly. He is furious with me for restricting his movements.

Then it is time to taste the meat. Everyone politely takes some of Greg’s marinated wallaby leg and Brenda offers lots of encouragement. “It’s delicious,” she insists. Later, we try the tail along with Brenda’s freshly made damper. It is much tastier than the leg, the meat is softer and sweeter. Joe loves it. He spends an hour sucking on a large bone as if it were a lollipop.

The afternoon stretches on and we sit listening to the water rushing over the rocks and eating more than our fair share of food. The conversation rambles on in a relaxed way. We talk about travelling, life in the Kimberley and the challenges Chris and Brenda face trying to give their kids a good education while making sure they appreciate and learn about their Aboriginal culture.

The Garstones lived in Perth for a while and their eldest son is at boarding school there, but they decided to bring the rest of the family back to Kununurra where they could be more connected with the bush. Hunting and spending time by the river is an important part of their lives.

Their eldest daughter, Jodene, who’s 10, spots my video camera and begs me to film her. She is beautiful and confident and her big brown eyes stare straight into my lens. She says she loves hunting. “I could survive in the bush,” she boasts. Then she pauses and decides to qualify her statement. “I could survive, as long as Dad was with me.”

Open Road November/December 2008