Original subtitles

I was 19 years old when I first saw Australia.

My dad had just died...

..and I was running away from my old life.

What I found in Australia changed me,

and I can remember saying,

"This is me. I've escaped. This is my life!"

Ow!

Today, Australia is so much more

than another travel destination to me.

My wife is Australian...

Thank you very much. No calories?

RICK CHUCKLES

..and this country has become my second home.

Love them to bits.

So, after a lifetime of food journeys,

I'm finally retracing some of that first trip.

Yes, now I'm ready to go!

I want to discover how Australia and its food is changing.

I remember coming up this coast - it was so remote.

You come back now and it's like THIS.

Takes me right back.

I kicked off this adventure in Sydney...

- Oh, look at that. - Oh, brilliant.

..but now I'm heading off to explore

what life beyond the city has to offer...

Well, I'd say it tasted like chickens used to taste.

I'll drink to that.

Cheers!

..and I'm bringing my inspiration home to create new recipes.

Oh...

I suspect it's going to be another journey of a lifetime.

I'm leaving Sydney and taking the highway north up the coast,

just as I did on my first Australian adventure as a teenager.

I can remember the first time I hitchhiked.

I got onto the Pacific Highway and stood there with my thumb.

It just felt so weird, really, just going like THIS.

But somebody slowed down, picked me up,

and after that, it all seemed perfectly normal.

Back then, I went wherever my lift was heading.

But this time I'm taking the opportunity

to discover what's on Sydney's doorstep...

..starting with

the Hawkesbury River...

..which marks the beginning

of the Central Coast.

Just 45 minutes from the city, this ancient waterway carves

and curls its way 140km to the ocean...

..through what seems like endless wilderness.

More than half this area is protected by National Parks.

I can't help thinking that being surrounded by

so much wilderness must have a big impact on people...

..as it did on me on my first visit.

When I first arrived in Australia,

the day I got off the boat, the guy that I was staying with said,

"We don't spend all our time sitting around the fire

"reading poetry to each other like you do over there.

"We do a lot of sport

"and we spend most of our time outside."

So, how much does being outdoors influence Australian food?

It's something I'm keen to explore,

which is why I'm starting this leg of my trip with a bushwalk.

Interestingly, I've never quite understood

what the term "bush" means.

I mean, when I came here, everybody was talking, "They're in the bush,"

or, "They're out bush."

So, I've just looked it up and it says here,

"Anywhere outside the capital cities

"and major centres of population,

"the expression 'he comes from the bush' simply means

"that he does not come from the city."

It's as simple as that.

Here we go.

I'm taking one of the many walking tracks through the area...

..to a small creek that I'm told runs down to the river.

Bushwalking first became popular in Australia in the early 1900s,

with people following the traces of paths made by the early settlers.

By the 1920s,

official clubs had sprung up all over the country,

and walking tracks became more formally marked

and maintained to help those - like me - from losing our way.

I remember when I first went for a bushwalk,

I was quite sort of nervous, to be honest,

because, actually, in the UK, when you go for a walk in a wood,

you never really think about getting lost,

but here you do.

BIRDSONG

WATERFALL RUSHING

Oh, that's really nice. Look at that!

Fabulous.

This is Ironbark Falls.

And it's where I'll be stopping to cook my lunch.

It's not in the National Park,

and the damp, overcast conditions means it's safe to have a fire.

I've been reading some history

about early picnics in this country, and it's really interesting,

and I'm going to try and recreate an early bush picnic.

I've got some instructions here for what they called a "chop picnic".

The chop picnic was normally made with mutton,

but the earliest recipe I've found

is made with kangaroo!

And, that's the recipe I'm using today.

Published in 1851,

it involves putting several pieces of kangaroo

and one piece of bacon on a pointed stick.

It's just a bit broken, this, but I think it'll hold.

So, I've got my pointed stick, I've got my kangaroo

and I've got my bacon.

But actually, what I'm going to do, rather than put the bacon

at one end, I'm going to put it right through, kebab-style,

because kangaroo meat, as I've learnt, is very, very lean,

so I'm wanting the bacon to really bathe

each piece of kangaroo with lovely, lovely lard.

Although kangaroo meat

was widely eaten by the early settlers,

it wasn't legal to sell it for human consumption until 1993.

These days, you can find kangaroo meat

in most Australian supermarkets.

Of course, if you can't get kangaroo, you can use lamb.

A bit more bacon.

There we go.

One thing I would always take on a picnic is salt.

It'll taste twice as good if it's nicely seasoned.

I know the bacon is nicely seasoned

with salt,

but a bit of extra salt on the kangaroo

won't do any harm at all.

So, I'm going to just sit here and cook my kangaroo and bacon,

hope that the stick doesn't burn...

And that the rain doesn't set in!

THUNDER RUMBLES

Though I do feel like I'm racing against the weather...

..just 20 minutes and it's nearly done.

THUNDER RUMBLES

There we go. Colouring up nicely.

Delicious. And a...

Mouth full!

Couldn't be better!

I must say, with the fatty bacon, the lean and rare kangaroo,

it is really lovely.

The flavour of the smoke...

The simple things are the best, I say.

I would definitely go chop picnicking again,

but not necessarily in this terrible rain!

When I first came to Australia,

I was escaping the grey skies of England,

so rain here was a bit of a rude shock.

I must say, whenever the weather's a bit like it is now,

a bit a bit grey and a bit drizzly,

they always say here, "Ya brought ya weather with ya!"

Happily, the skies soon clear,

as I'm taking the opportunity to follow the river inland

for about 70km.

Well, I've never been this far up the Hawkesbury River before,

and I must say it's magnificent.

It's just the sinuous nature of the river

and these wonderful vistas that you get every now and then

of this really wide river

and the trees going right down to the water.

It's fabulous.

The Hawkesbury was named after an English politician,

the 1st Earl of Liverpool, Baron Hawkesbury,

in 1789.

But long before the arrival of the British,

it was home to the Dharug people.

They were among the first to feel the impact of British settlement,

which included disease, warfare

and the displacement from their ancestral lands.

Despite this, the Dharug remain closely tied to this country.

I've arranged to meet two traditional

custodians of the river -

Dharug artist and writer Leanne and her daughter Rhiannon.

- Hello. - Hello. Warami.

Warami. Nayagiada Rhiannon.

"My name is Rhiannon."

And this is my beautiful mum, Leanne.

SHE SPEAKS DHARUG LANGUAGE

Which means, "Hello, good to see you on Dharug Country."

- Well, it's nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you too.

Tell me about the land and your connection to it.

It really matters, doesn't it?

It does, yes. Aboriginal people believe that we don't own the land,

we're actually a part of the land.

So, just like the water and the trees

and the animals that you see, we're actually a part of Country.

The river is the lifeblood of our Country.

It's abundant in food, different food sources for our people.

So we grew our yams along here,

which was our staple food for thousands of years.

Were they actually cultivated?

So, women cultivated the yams.

We had yam beds.

At a particular time of year,

which we would know by certain plants blooming,

it would be the time to go to the river.

We'd go there and take what we needed and then replant the yams.

So we actually farmed -

they didn't just grow wild.

That's really interesting because, I mean,

there's this sort of idea that the original people

- in the country didn't farm stuff... - We did.

..they just lived off the land.

But it's really...I think, really important to realise

that they did, you know.

Yeah, we definitely did.

I've actually got one of my illustrations

of the yams along the river.

That's lovely. It's so pretty.

They've got a yellow flower? I don't know a yam.

Yeah, it's like a daisy flower.

Yeah, and then this one here

is a giant eel engraving.

So, it says, "When the war... the war..." Sorry.

- "Wandanguli blooms..." - Wandanguli blooms.

- What is the wandanguli? - When the wattle blooms.

- So when the wattle blooms, that's time to hunt for eels? - Yeah.

- I love eels! - Yeah, swimming out to sea to go out

and spawn at the Coral Sea.

I love it. "When the wattle blooms."

- Yeah, beautiful, isn't it? - That's time to go fishing for eels.

The Hawkesbury River has been a very important and sacred place

for our people for tens of thousands of years.

It's real name is actually Dyarubbin,

And it means, in our language, "deep, fast-flowing water".

- Dyarubbin? - That's what it's been called for...since it was created,

since the beginning of the Dreaming.

When our father's spirit Baiame first came down to our Country,

everything was flat and there was nothing really here.

So, he brought down creative spirits with him.

And one of those was Gurangatch.

Gurangatch is like a giant eel being.

We actually believe that Gurangatch created our creeks,

our mountains and caves and valleys.

Just across the river there you can see in the sandstone

there's what looks like two eyes looking out.

Yeah, I can see that.

We actually believe that is where his spirit can look out

over the river and look out on Country and make sure

that everything's being taken care of.

- I can see we're being watched. - We are!

I'm so enjoying my time with Leanne and Rhiannon.

They really want to share the experience of this landscape.

And, I must say,

what really got to me was the importance of landscape,

the importance of the physical world.

I think probably in the West,

we're slightly sort of forgotten how important

something like that face watching us,

or the river and the eels in the river mean to people.

I'm taking the scenic route back downstream

towards the coast and the main highway.

And being on these small backroads

means having to crisscross my way back and forth across the river.

I do love a ferry crossing, even a short one like this.

I find it quite restful,

and I find the...crossing water quite romantic.

It gives you time to pause and reflect.

This ferry service has been running since the 1870s.

It's one of four that still operate along the river today,

connecting Sydney and the small bush communities

that are scattered along the river's banks.

I'm making my way along the winding river for about an hour,

because I'm meeting an Australian chef

who's established a unique restaurant venture here.

Well, the guy I'm going to see is called John Ralley...

..a pastry chef that's worked in a Michelin-star restaurant.

And I happen to know the Michelin-star restaurant

in London where he worked.

And he left city life behind

and made a life cooking and living here on the river.

I'm curious to find out what he's up to

and how being in the bush is influencing what he does.

I wonder if he's the modern-day answer to the chop picnic!

I've been told I'll find him on the banks of the river

at a quiet little spot called Spencer.

Hi, John. Nice to meet you.

Quite a long way from London, I have to say.

Yeah, it's a little different, bit of a change.

Just a little! And quite a long way from being a serious pastry chef.

- Yeah, times are changing! - Really?

And it's so beautiful here, so open.

It must have been a big decision.

You suddenly up sticks and come here.

So why? Why here?

Just wanting to be outdoors more, fishing, hunting

and doing what I love to do - cooking over fire.

I got the place a few years ago

and have been building my little kitchen ever since.

- Bush Kitchen? - Bush River Kitchen.

- Can we go there? - Let's go. - All right.

- In this? - Yep, that's it!

It's a bit small, isn't it?

JOHN LAUGHS

John's size of boat - a "tinny" - is rather...teeny...

..but it's doing the job of getting us up to the remote patch of land

where he's created his off-grid kitchen and restaurant.

John tells me he sources all his ingredients locally,

including hunting some of them himself.

He then creates outdoor meals for pre-booked guests...

COCKEREL CROWS

..many of whom make the hour's trip from Sydney to enjoy dinner

in this wild landscape.

His mission is to help people reconnect to nature through food.

Wow!

Gosh, this is a bit more than I...

..a lot bigger than I thought.

It's amazing.

How many people do you cook for here, then?

We do groups of 10 to 20 people.

Tonight he's fire-roasting deer,

an animal that was brought to Australia by the British

in the 1800s.

It looks like a sort of sculpture.

- A medieval sculpture? - Yeah, yeah! - It's a whole deer.

- Wow. - It's classified as a, I guess, a pest in Australia.

- What, this is? - Yeah, venison.

Some of the finest meat you have.

- And this is a pest? - In Australia, yes.

- Why? - Because... I guess they're in plague proportions,

and they've got to be controlled.

And you would control them by eating them?

That's what I do. So I'm trying to educate people

on wild game and the beautiful resource we have here in Australia.

Why not get out of Sydney and come to the bush and eat from the bush?

Well, this is really interesting, because in the UK,

venison is the finest meat and...

Well, it is, and I think a lot of people in Australia don't know that.

John believes that eating invasive species

like this feral deer can help protect the Australian bush.

It slowly cooks for about between six to eight hours.

- Really, really slowly? - Yeah.

So, when you look at it now,

it looks like it won't be very sort of delicate

and moist in the middle, but I know it will be.

Yeah, that's what the brine's for as well, to keep that moisture in,

and we just slowly baste it every half an hour.

- I might need a hand. - Oh, OK, right.

Tell me what to do.

And this roasting deer has to be turned every 30 minutes.

- We'll just kind of grab a side each. - OK.

- And we're just going to... - What are we doing, then?

Lift up to the top, and then we'll pull out.

- And we'll walk it out. - OK.

Sit it down.

And we're going to...

- Twist it round? - Spin that around. - OK.

And then we're going to go...

This one in the hole where it is at the moment.

- Oh, fair enough. - Then we'll go front and down.

Shoulders down.

OK.

Oh, it's so good.

So, are these pumpkins or butternut squash?

Yeah, so we've got some local butternut squash

from an organic farmer up the road.

They look nicely charred. So that's going to be

- a side veg, I guess. - Yeah, so we're going to make a salad out of that.

- A salad? - Yeah. - Great.

So... And then we're going to cook a whole bunch of stuff on the grill

and in the oven for a few sides.

Right, great!

This is where all the accompaniments are being done?

- This is Colin. - Hi, Colin. - Hunting buddy!

Hunting buddy?

And obviously grilling some... what we call courgettes,

but you call zucchini.

- Flatbreads in here to serve with. - Oh, great.

So, yeah, just a pizza oven to cook over a fire like this -

for me, it's the only way.

And with all the fire-roasting nearing its end...

..John starts bringing tonight's menu together...

..as his first table of diners assemble...

Hi, everyone. I'm just helping out here.

- Fancy some wine? - Yay! - Excellent stuff. - Cheers!

..for their shared meal in the bush.

- That looks great. Shall I take it upstairs? - Thank you.

Butternut squash?

Brilliant.

Looks so nice.

Watched it being cooked!

And now we have zucchini, eggplant and garlic.

Or...in my parlance...

..courgette, aubergine and garlic.

- Look at that! - Fantastic.

But will our roasted venison do the job

and convince tonight's diners...

Great!

..that they should be eating more feral deer?

Perfect.

Tempted to nick a bit.

Sam!

- Yep, pull that. - That's good. That's really good.

It's hard to believe that this meat is so unpopular here

that most butchers don't stock it.

That looks quite rare in the middle. Is that how you like the...?

That's a beautiful... Yeah, medium rare.

You want it pink, you don't want to dry the meat out,

because there's not much fat in venison.

- Yeah. Of course. - So you want to cook it to that medium,

- medium rare. - Smells good.

Well, I'd like to say that this is John's hard work.

- He started at 7am this morning. - Yeah!

And I must confess,

I've tried a tiny little bit, and it's totally delicious.

That's fantastic!

- Great. - No, no.

That looks incredible.

Dig in.

- The roasties look good. - That looks fantastic, doesn't it?

And your flatbreads are immaculate.

This is the most important thing.

OK.

Um, excuse me...

People are always complaining

when I speak with my mouth full, so I've just got to chew a bit.

But your venison, it's really lovely.

Very tender.

- I think that's through the long cooking. - Yeah.

And fantastic flavour.

I mean, the thing about venison, I reckon if you were blindfolded,

you wouldn't say it was pork,

you'd just wonder whether it's beef or not.

Yeah, I think if you cook it properly and compare it to beef...

- Yeah. - ..a good bit of venison, it's hard to beat.

I totally agree.

I'd just like to ask everybody, has anybody not had venison before?

Oh! Arabella?

No, I haven't tried venison before,

and I was a bit worried, knowing that it's a pest,

but it's delicious.

And it's something that I would choose at a restaurant,

- which is saying a lot, so... - Well, I couldn't agree more.

I just don't understand why more people don't eat it, really.

It needs to be on the menu more in Australia.

I'll drink to that.

Cheers to venison!

An outdoor dinner of scrumptiousness,

so superbly cooked over wood - local wood.

Great flavour.

The flavours are so special, I can totally understand

why John has such a passion for cooking in the bush.

And I can't help feeling that here in Australia

outdoor eating, why would you not?

It just seems like the best way of enjoying yourself

in this lovely country.

I've really felt the impact of the bush

travelling along this river,

but these days most Aussies live on the coast,

so that's where I'm heading now.

I'm taking the backroads to the small town of Woy Woy.

The town's name is a First Nations word

meaning "big lagoon" or "much water",

and it sits on a huge tidal estuary

that opens right onto the ocean.

Woy Woy was once known as a place where people came to retire,

but these days it's very much a commuter belt town

on the train line to Sydney.

The reason I'm visiting is that I've read

that one of my favourite comedians spent a lot of time here,

and I'm curious to know why.

Spike Milligan was the co-creator, chief writer

and one of the stars of The Goon Show,

a radio show my family listened to in the '50s.

I'm a great fan of Spike Milligan,

and apparently there's a permanent exhibition at the local library,

so I'm going to visit it.

Nice-looking library. I love a library.

Oh, that looks like it here.

Yes, Milligan!

Yes. Oh, great.

Oh, I've got THAT one, The Best Of The Goon Show,

somewhere in the attic, I'm afraid, now, but I've got it.

Trumpet!

This exhibition is a real walk down memory lane for me.

I suppose you could call his humour "zany" you know?

Even when Spike passed away in 2002,

he left us with a laugh.

His gravestone in Rye in Kent,

which actually says, in Gaelic,

"I told you I was ill."

The Woy Woy Connections.

There's him with his parents.

And it seems they retired here.

Just like many people,

the Milligans came to Australia in the early '50s.

And I think his mother said, "Because it was warmer.!

And they settled in places like, first Sydney, and then Woy Woy.

"There is somewhere in the steaming bush of Australia,

"a waterside town called Woy Woy,

"Woy it is called Woy Woy, Oi will never know."

"Spike was quoted as calling Woy Woy

"'the largest above-ground cemetery in the world'.

"Many locals have never forgotten this quip..."

I can understand that.

"..but Spike's clear love and attachment

"to the Woy Woy area proved that he adored the place."

Spike said, "In 1951,

"my parents emigrated to Australia

"and I thought they were mad.

"However, in 1959, I came out here to see them

"and I went mad.

"I fell in love with the place. I couldn't get enough of it."

What else have we got here?

Spike fishing. Wow!

He looks very Aussie there.

Actually, this is interesting, the last paragraph here.

It says, "Spike returned to Woy Woy many times over the years,

"at least 20 times from 1959 onwards

"and often for long stays.

"The man who could have chosen to live anywhere

"in many aspects regarded Woy Woy as his home."

Stepping outside the library

and walking along this enormous estuary...

..I can see the appeal, especially for someone

who loved being outdoors and fishing, as Spike did.

- Thanks, Jack. - You're very welcome. - Cheers.

- Thank you. - Good stuff. Thanks.

And it's hard not to be charmed

by this relaxed, laid-back little town.

What is there not to like?

As everyone who knows me can tell you, I love a swim.

And here in Woy Woy, I'm just a stone's throw from the beach,

which is where I'm heading this morning.

Living in Cornwall, I was really familiar with the surf,

and it was the arrival of Australian lifeguards

that gave me the idea of coming to Australia myself.

As I've discovered, ocean swimming

is practically a national pastime in Australia.

There are about 1,000 open-water swimming clubs

dotted around nearly 40,000km of coastline,

and I reckon it's time I gave it a go.

So I'm joining the Peninsula Swimmers -

it's a swimming club here.

Ben, good morning.

There are about 40 of them gathering at the Umina Beach Surf Club

getting ready for their daily swim.

The average age of its members is 50,

with the youngest being 28...

Good morning!

..and the oldest, who I'm meeting, being a sprightly 80-year-old.

Hi. I'm Rick.

- Hi, I'm Malcolm. - Oh, nice to meet you, Malcolm.

Are you looking forward to an ocean swim?

- A plunge! - A plunge? Is that it?

- This is for you. - Wow.

It's so we can see you out in all that wild water.

Oh, well, that makes a lot of sense.

- So, I shall cherish this. - Good.

So, just tell me about the swimming group,

because it's a very different ages.

Well, I think one of the amazing things is that we all...

It's such a diverse group of people.

- Yeah. - One thing in common - we all love the ocean.

Well, it looks a bit, um... Well, I would call it gnarly.

- Washing machine? - It does... Yeah, I can see that.

- Malcolm, what about things like sharks? - Sharks?

You don't want to know about them!

RICK LAUGHS

The white band?

- Yeah. What's that, then? - That's the shark band.

What does that mean?

She scares the sharks off the rest of us.

So, how does that work? It doesn't look very scary to me.

I think it sends out pulses.

We don't say the S word!

Apparently, the band sends out a powerful electromagnetic field

that deters predatory sharks.

Let's hope it works.

Well, here we go.

Glad I got my high-vis hat...

Cap! I might need it!

Yes, now I'm ready to go!

Once we get out past these waves,

today's swim, around some floating markers,

covers just under a kilometre,

with the group swimming together at a comfortable pace,

which suits me perfectly.

Well, I have to say that was very exhilarating.

I was a bit nervous, but actually the waves look much worse

than they are.

And it's just really nice swimming with a whole bunch of other people.

You feel sort of safe.

But just thinking... I mean, there's such a connection

with the outdoors here in Australia,

I imagine all up and down the coast people will be doing this.

And I guess it wouldn't matter where you came from,

because one of the things I picked up talking to all those people was

they don't really want to know where you're from or what you do,

it's just how much you enjoy having a swim.

I'm leaving the beaches and Woy Woy behind

and heading away from the coast into the fertile green hinterland.

My next destination is 40km north,

a lush valley called Yarramalong.

After being logged for timber,

much of the land in this area was cleared for intensive agriculture.

And I've heard about a young couple

who've had taken up farming here in a unique way.

They're having such success, their produce was served

to King Charles and Queen Camilla

on their royal tour of Australia.

I'm curious to learn what their secret is,

so I'm popping in for a visit.

Ah, farm shop - I love a farm shop.

CATTLE BELLOW

This is not like a farm shop I've seen before.

There don't seem to be any vegetables,

but some very nice-looking produce in these fridges.

Got some lovely-looking pasture-raised chickens.

Some Scotch fillet.

Oh, that looks like all different types of mince there.

Sirloin, beef roast, nice-looking bacon.

Some beef marrow bones.

This is really quite special!

And this...

What's this?

Oh, my gosh, they look like chickens' feet!

Yeah, they're chickens' feet! What are they for?

This is much bigger than any roadside honesty stall

I've seen before,

with some seriously high-quality produce.

And here comes one of the farmers I've arranged to meet.

- Hi. - G'day, how are you going? - I'm Rick.

Hi, Rick, I'm Tim.

I was just trying to work out how you paid for stuff in here,

because I'm used to, back in the UK...

Honesty places like this are just veg...

- Yeah! - ..not some really expensive beef and all that.

- Yeah. - Are people generally honest, then?

Yeah, they're incredible. They're over-honest most of the time.

Our policy is about trust in general,

and people trust us so much

to grow clean, healthy food for their families,

and so we thought it was only fitting

that we'd have a place where they could come

whenever they want and be trusted.

That's so encouraging about...

Well, maybe Australians are more honest than anybody else!

- Maybe. - I just wanted to ask you, what are those chickens' feet for?

They're dried chicken feet - we give them away for dog treats,

- because we have... - Oh, I see!

I thought maybe making stock or something.

Yeah, no, we have a zero-waste policy,

so we try and use every part of the chicken when we process them.

ENGINE STARTS

- Ready? - Yeah. - Hold tight.

And Tim's taking me on a tour of the farm.

So where are we going?

We're going to stop off to the cattle first.

Oh, OK, brilliant.

Tim tells me he and his partner, Hannah,

are both first-generation farmers

who only began leasing the land a little over four years ago.

They're all about connecting emotionally

to the meat they eat

and producing it in a way that helps regenerate the land.

Something that's really special about our cattle

is that they spend their whole life on grass.

Just at the moment, we're sowing some of our pastures on the farm,

which are really diverse.

So they've got, you know, 15 different varieties

of grass and legume and herbs to make sure

the animals access the different nutrients

that are locked into the soil.

All right, Rick, these are our grass-fed Black Angus cattle.

They're looking very healthy and very contented.

Most cattle in Australia and around the world are finished on grain,

but we just want them to have a really natural life.

And do you think that affects the flavour, then?

Oh, absolutely.

So, do you get nice feedback

from your customers, then?

Oh, amazing feedback all the time,

and we get really strange feedback as well.

- Like? - Once, we had a woman - she emailed us because she'd been eating

grain-fed meat for most of her life,

and she was so excited that now she was eating

our grass fed-meat, she'd stopped farting.

- Fabulous! - And it saved their marriage!

Saved their marriage! Great!

Flatulence-free farming!

You probably won't be putting that on your website,

but that's great.

- Oh, on that note... - Yeah! - ..let's move on.

I think we should.

And Tim's keen to show me the farm's pride and joy.

So, Rick, these are our pasture-raised,

certified organic-fed meat chickens.

And, this is my partner, Hannah.

Hello. Very nice to meet you, Hannah.

- Nice to meet you, too. - What have you got in that hat?

I've brought two of our little baby chickens.

Oh, gosh! Oh, they're so cute, aren't they?

- Yeah, they're really sweet. - They are.

What's with the dog?

Yeah, that's Bones.

The dog dedicates his life to looking after the chickens.

- Really? - Yeah, it means we never have to lock them in -

they live out here in the wild, and he protects them

from the foxes and eagles.

Tell me about the chickens, then.

Yeah, so we grow these chickens.

We believe in growing food that's high vibrations, yeah.

Could you just explain "high vibration"? It's...

What's that mean then? Just...?

So, high vibration is all about

every single decision that we make on the farm...

- Yeah. - ..being really holistic, thinking about the earth.

You know, our chickens are free to express themselves.

They get to choose whether they're indoors or outdoors.

- Yeah. - So you'll see, like how mobile and able to forage

and live their best chicken life in every chicken way possible.

When we come to ending our chicken's life,

we take a lot of responsibility for that,

because if we bring a life into this world,

we need to be responsible for its death.

So, we wait till they're asleep at night.

We express a lot of gratitude to them.

We gently pick them up, pop them in a crate

and we then process them.

Well, I sort of often think, then, that, you know,

looking after animals like that,

many people who perhaps don't eat meat

because of the sort of worries about animal husbandry,

would feel a lot easier about that, wouldn't they?

We have the philosophy that if you do choose to eat meat or chicken,

we want you to know that there is a life behind that.

And these chickens truly live from the moment they're born

to the moment they leave the farm.

So our chickens - definitely seasoned in sunshine

and grass and bugs and a little bit of opera.

- A little bit of opera? - Yeah! - You sing to your chickens?

Yeah.

HANNAH SINGS OPERATICALLY

Fabulous!

Gosh! Well, you know,

that's going to make all the difference to your chickens, really!

Yeah, that's why they taste so good.

And I've been invited to join Tim and Hannah for lunch,

so I can find out for myself

what an opera-listening good-vibrations chicken tastes like.

Is this your house?

This is our tiny house.

It looks more like a shipping container to me.

I think it's been to Taiwan twice, and now it's here on the farm.

Here it is, the star of the show.

That looks great!

Gosh...

It smells very nice too.

- Shall we dig in? - Yes.

What part do you like?

- I don't mind. - OK, excellent.

Probably a bit of both.

Thank you.

I know in Australia you have to wait till everybody's been served.

In the UK,

I was told that the former Queen told everybody to get stuck in,

simply because in her palaces the kitchen was so far away

from the dining room, most would have had cold food...

- Yeah, right. - ..if they waited for everybody else.

I think that's good advice. I like that.

What do you say, Queen?

LAUGHTER

- I think we get stuck in if we want to. - All right.

- Let us begin. - Let's give it a go. - Can't wait.

Mm.

Oh!

I don't know whether I can taste the vibrations in it, but...

..if you don't mind me swearing, it's bloody good chicken!

The chicken?

Well, I'd say it tasted like chickens used to taste.

Oh!

LAUGHTER

Just loads of flavour.

Yeah, we'll take that.

Thank you.

That is delicious.

Supermarket chickens taste of very little,

and this tastes of very much.

Thanks, Rick.

I really enjoyed talking to Tim and Hannah

and seeing the way they run their farm,

doing as much as they can to enable their animals

to live a really healthy, happy life.

I think that's what's so special about them,

but also the chicken was so delicious!

So, maybe food DOES taste better

because of the good vibrations of a place like this.

Neither Tim nor Hannah grew up farming here on the Central Coast...

..but there seems to be something about this region

that draws people in.

I'm really interested to know how newcomers

from very different backgrounds

take to this great Australian outdoor lifestyle.

So, I've arranged to meet a fellow called Balong Nguyen.

He's a YouTuber who posts about his foraging

and cooking expeditions on the Central Coast.

Hello, folks, welcome back. It's been a while,

and I have to say I'm chomping at the bit for today,

because it's been almost two years

since I've been to this particular spot.

So, what we're doing here today is a mudflat forage.

And what I'm looking for is the local rock oysters.

Look at that.

Now, this is something you'd pay 30 bucks a dozen for

in a fishmonger.

This one is going to be sensational.

I'm meeting Balong about half an hour's drive north from here

at Lake Macquarie.

It's Australia's largest saltwater coastal lake,

and it's a whopping 24km long.

That's twice the size of Sydney Harbour.

Balong's invited me here to go foraging with him.

- Good morning. Balong. - G'day. How are you? - Very lovely day.

Lake Macquarie - first time I've been here.

- Welcome to my playground. - Oh, fantastic!

And what a playground it is!

Balong tells me he's been hunting and gathering here

ever since he first arrived in Australia as a kid.

Balong, how did you and your family get to Australia?

So, we were refugees after the Vietnam War,

and I came here at a young age of two.

- Came by boat. - Two? - Yes, yes.

So, I've got to say, I'm pretty much an Australian.

However, I do hold my Vietnamese cultural identity.

And, I suppose foraging for molluscs, for things off the beach,

was sort of second nature to you, coming from Vietnam?

Yes, it's pretty much what I grew up with.

My parents took me from a very young age,

because it gave them a bit of a taste of home.

It's also a necessity, because when we first came to Australia,

we didn't have a lot of money,

so a lot of the fishing and foraging was,

basically, just putting food on the table for us.

We're heading to Elizabeth Island,

a small sand island in the centre of the lake.

- What are we foraging for? - Ah, cockles.

- Cockles? - Yes.

And how are we going to forage for the cockles, then?

So, we'll be wading in ankle-to-knee-deep water,

and we'll use our feet to feel for them.

And once we once we've found it,

we'll just put our hand down and just gather it.

And will I find it easy to find them or...?

- Yeah. - Because you're skilful.

Oh, I'm skilful but, yeah, it's...

..it's a nice way of saying it's child's play.

It's a good family activity, because I get the younger children to do it,

- usually while I sit back! - Yeah, fabulous.

It's so shallow. A lovely colour.

Elizabeth Island, here I come!

Yeah. Good stuff. Looking forward to doing a bit of cockling.

Well, I've been cockling in England,

so I'm hoping I'm going to find this really easy.

I've foraged for cockles before, but always in wellies with a rake.

This feels completely different.

- It's lovely and warm, the water. - Yeah.

I wouldn't want to be doing this in Cornwall.

I wouldn't last too long.

So, what am I looking for?

OK, so we're actually feeling with our feet.

- OK. - I think I've got one there.

OK.

- Oh, brilliant. - There it is.

Here we go.

Oh, this is such fun. He's just got two.

So, I must stress that there is a limit to these.

- How many? - There's 20 per person. So between the two of us...

- 20? - Yeah. - OK.

Well, it'd be fine with me, because I'm not doing so well,

but you'll have them in about five minutes.

Oh, yeah.

Oh...

- It's by feel, pretty much. - Yeah.

- No, I think I've got one. - Oh, there you go.

Oh, brilliant. That's great.

They are exactly cockles.

Yeah. Love them.

I wonder if you can open them. Have you tried that?

Oh, no, they're too big.

But the Cornish cockles you can open by just going...twisting them.

- Probably cos they are a lot smaller. - Yeah, they are a lot smaller.

Much more fun than raking them.

Just feel... You know, getting your whole body in tune.

- You're more involved in it. - Yeah, exactly.

Two.

A very proud moment for me.

Against all odds!

We'd better not take any more, had we?

We've probably we got it.

We only need 40.

And having reached our quota of cockles, it's time to head back.

And you're going to cook some for me?

- Oh, absolutely. You're in for a treat. - Can't wait!

- This is pretty idyllic, isn't it? - Oh, yes.

Start putting some cockles on, just so they start cooking.

What are you cooking?

So, we're just going to be doing a simple dish of barbecued cockles.

So, we'll let this do its thing for about ten minutes

until they start opening.

It's probably worth pointing out, if they don't open like this,

it's not the fact that they've gone off or they're dead,

- some of them just don't open. - That's right.

- Yeah, that's a myth, that... - It is, yeah.

- ..about all the shellfish. - Yeah. - And it's a total waste, really -

that's what I reckon, yeah.

I always say if they smell good and they don't open,

they're still good.

You're not wrong there, Rick.

And these cockles smell of hot shells and boiling sea water -

a sort of lovely perfume of the sea.

I love it when you're cooking scallops in the shell -

- you get that same thing from... - Absolutely.

..from the shell itself.

And Balong's serving these cockles

with a home-made Vietnamese dressing

made up of chopped and salted spring onions in peanut oil.

- Just finish it off... - Great.

..just with a little sprinkle of crushed peanuts on top.

OK.

And then a couple of wedges of lemon.

After you, Rick.

Well, I can't wait.

That one looks particularly juicy.

Particularly scrumptious.

Delicious.

I mean, I love the way in Vietnamese cooking

you've got contrasting textures.

I love those peanuts in there.

- Yeah. - A lovely bit of crunch.

Softness of the cockles.

They're quite chewy,

but they've got a lovely flavour.

And, um...

I'm loving the spring onions in there.

- Love them to bits. - Thank you, Rick. I'm glad you do.

- I'm trying to eat more than you. - Mm!

There's only one thing that's still missing.

They need a beer, Rick.

Oh, let's. Thank you very much.

Great. Fabulous.

In England, I'd call these bar snacks.

- Very good with a beer. - Absolutely.

And a translation of Vietnamese, we call this "do nhau",

which is "drinking food".

- Drinking food! - Drinking food. Yep, that's it.

It's really good when cultures combine

to produce a real bit of pleasure.

- Cheers. - Cheers.

I just remember when I first arrived in Australia in the '60s,

I just thought, "This is different to back home."

I just fell in love with the outdoor lifestyle.

I think that's been a huge influence on my approach

to cooking and food,

and I'm feeling that same enthusiasm all over again.

I so enjoyed visiting Tim and Hannah

and tasting their wonderful chicken, roast chicken,

that I've decided to do a chicken saute

in their honour with Semillon and creme fraiche.

And the first thing I need to do is to brown my chicken.

Just a little bit of butter in my casserole here.

I'm just going to let the butter actually start to brown.

And in we go.

Note that I'm putting all the pieces skin side down.

It's better to cook your "showy" side first,

because that will look the best.

Now I can turn them over.

OK, that's lovely.

OK, that's done.

What I'm going to do next

is fry some shallots and some garlic.

The reason I'm using shallots rather than onions,

the shallots are a bit sweeter.

And also I prefer chopping shallots,

because it doesn't make me weep!

It's all going straight into the empty chicken pan

with the leftover juices and fat.

And now to add chicken stock.

And now some Semillon -

about a large wine glass,

about 250ml, I suppose.

Something like that.

Semillon is a popular white wine in Australia,

but you could use any dry white, really.

I always like to put a lot of thyme in.

Fresh bay leaves.

So, just let that come to the boil,

because all I'm going to do now

is add the pieces of chicken back in again...

..and cook at a low simmer,

I would suggest, for about 30 minutes.

When I was talking to Leanne and Rhiannon,

they were mentioning that Indigenous people

used to cultivate yams along the river.

You can't get yams easily now,

so I just thought sweet potato would make a perfect mash.

They're going on the boil for ten minutes

while I fry up some mushrooms.

I could, of course,

have just added my mushrooms with the chicken.

The reason I didn't is - what I like is the colour

that gets into the mushroom if you fry them

and also the concentration

as you draw off some of the moisture.

So those mushrooms are looking and smelling gorgeous.

The chicken is pretty well cooked now,

so I'm taking it out and leaving the liquid to reduce

because I'm going to use this as the base of my sauce.

I've got some creme fraiche here

and two egg yolks.

Just going to stir those together.

I'm making what is known as a liaison,

which will thicken the sauce.

And I'm adding a little of the hot liquid from the pan

to the liaison first.

And the reason for adding the hot sauce to it -

it's almost to get the liaison used to heating up a little bit.

In it goes. You don't want to sort of shock it...

..and then have it curdle on you.

Once you've got the liaison in there,

you can't boil the sauce again.

You can see now that it's beginning to thicken up.

As I add the chicken to it, it'll continue to thicken.

And now for the mushrooms.

Still nice and warm.

Oh!

That's ready to serve.

So, there we go.

With the sweet potato boiled...

Give them a good old mash.

That's smelling gorgeous of sort of earthy roots.

And now the only flavourings that I tend to add

are just butter and full-cream milk.

A bit of seasoning,

maybe half a teaspoon or so.

So, we're ready to serve.

I've asked my wife Sass to come and taste everything,

see what she thinks.

Sauteed chicken with a sweet potato mash.

And hopefully it's just as delicious,

whether eaten outside or in!

- There you go, Sassy. - Oh, thank you, Ricky.

- Scrumptious. - Scrumptious, eh?

What exactly have you put in the chicken?

Because it tastes really like...

It's got sort of a bit of a tang to it.

It is creme fraiche and egg yolk.

But also, I used some Semillon. It's the wine in there.

- Great. - I see you copying me with the sweet potato mash.

If I hadn't met you, I probably wouldn't be a fan of sweet potatoes.

We're all conservative. I just thought, "I wouldn't put

"sweet potato with something like a French chicken saute."

- It's fabulous. - So, well done.

- Gnarly's the word. - Gnarly.

Next time... I continue my road trip

to explore the subtropical North Coast...

It'll be invigorating.

..to find out what brings people here...

What is a patissier from Claridge's

doing in a place like Glenreagh?

..how they're adapting to their new way of life...

- That is exceptional. - Thank you.

..and what that means for dining.

A lot of the most exciting food now is outside of the cities.

I love them!