My attorney advised me to take a break. Forget about some stuff. Cut loose. Take the baby.

So I did. Packed up, shipped out, left town trailing an 18-month old tin lid, the cowboy and a litany of broken promises, the most significant of which was to return (with the baby).

I taste freedom on the breeze, a salty breath of release, and the smell of unleaded brings on a headache to mark the moment.

Our steed is a 6WD ex-Hammersley Iron fire truck called Black Betty; once rusting disconsolately in Kalgoorlie, she is now 4.8 tonnes of rolling stock, a flatbed loaded high with our travelling home, a growling bitch yip-yipping with the call of the road.

Our journey into the hinterland to prove a point about good coffee only existing in the metropolis starts here. It is the search for Australiana, the hunt for all things bogan and the heart and soul of this wide brown land.

(Note to self. When planning far-reaching escapes in search of bodgy Australiana consider options well. Avoca Beach, it turns out, is not a promising start.)

Black Betty