Vegan in Adelaide and Broken Hill

After exploring Perth and Fremantle Nick and I flew east to Adelaide. It's a smaller and less touristy city than Melbourne, Sydney, or Brisbane and I really enjoyed it. On our first night there we went for a walk and saw protesters showing the earthlings experience, drank bubble teas, and went to Zen House for vegan yum cha. It was the perfect first glimpse into the city and we were excited to return. We stayed at the Adelaide Central YHA hostel which worked out great for us, it really is very central which is a theme with YHA hostels, when they say they're central they really are. It's within an easy walking distance of vegan eats, there was good wifi which is a must as a travel blogger, a huge lounge area, a book swap (so great!), and a decent sized kitchen which was always very clean. It was the perfect jumping off point for a trip into the outback as they even have a car park out back where we were able to park our rental car whilst we loaded it up with food, water, and our backpacks.

Our road trip was taking us six hours north of Adelaide to Broken Hill where we planned to stay in a cabin for a couple of nights.

Nick and I love to take road trips and this one was extra fun because we'd never seen scenery like this before. We love to snack on the road rather than stopping to make a meal especially when we have six hours of driving to do in one day and my favourite way to get my protein in Australia is this Japanese marinated tofu by Soyco. You can find it in most decent sized Cole's stores and if you can handle the spice there are Malaysian and Thai versions. Just watch out for the Chinese one because it contains honey.

We arrived in Broken Hill in time for sunset but there isn't really anything to do in town after dark aside from bars or restaurants and we were staying somewhere with a kitchen so after sunset we just cooked dinner at the cabin, played cards, and got an early night. The next morning I opened up the Happy Cow app on my phone to see whether there was anything decent nearby and was surprised to see a cafe called The Silly Goat which looked like it had vegan food as well as plant milks for drinks! So cool. We hopped out of bed and headed straight there.

We ordered slices of chocolate banana bread as well as drinks and my matcha latte was actually the best I've ever has outside of a Starbucks. I know that sounds ridiculous but Starbucks make an annoyingly good matcha latte. This one had the right amount of foam and creaminess and there was none of the bitter taste or grittiness that cafes often seem to have going on. I also tried the cold brew which was huge. I grabbed some macadamia nut milk as that's how I enjoy cold brew but it was still far too much caffeine for me; after breakfast we headed to the Flying Doctors museum and I had to sit outside for a bit because I felt super weird. I was having heart palpitations and I felt anxious and shakey. I've been laying off of the coffee since that experience! After the museum we drove to Silverton because Nick had read that it's an old silver mining town and he wanted to check it out. As soon as we arrived we saw donkeys roaming around. We heard that they moved into the town one day and just hang out there now, they were very cute and friendly.

I enjoyed checking out the former mining town, I had a XXXX at a local pub and we wandered about a bit. It's definitely a very touristy spot but 89 people do actually live there. One thing that wasn't on our list before travelling to Broken Hill was a trip out to the Broken Hill Sculpture Park which we heard from a local was an amazing place to see sunset. We decided to head up towards the sculptures on foot via the 900m walking trail from the picnic & BBQ area car park and we were so glad that we did. About 1/3 of the way up the path we spotted this kangaroo with a joey in her pouch. She was just chilling out and eating and she didn't seem at all bothered by our presence.

We ended up just standing on the path watching her snacking for about 20 minutes. We almost missed sunset because we were so mesmerised. Kangaroos are so beautiful and to get this kind of one on one time to just stand quietly and watch what they're up to in the wild is incredible.

Nobody else came past us on the path and there were no other cars in the car park when we left or when we got back which means that everyone just drives up for sunset. This seems like a mistake to me, a walk is always nice but getting to see this gorgeous marsupial doing her thing was really the icing on top of the cake. Sunset was beautiful albeit quite busy but I've never seen one quite like it, the sky is just so vast that it's a bit like a 360 degree sunset and the colours were amazing.

If we'd had more time we definitely would have gone on the Cultural Walk Trail and the Flora Trail at the living desert but we had to get back to the city. We were headed back to Adelaide for a few days of chilling before picking up a relocation and driving the great ocean road towards Melbourne. We stayed at the Adelaide Central YHA hostel again which worked out great for us, they have a cool deal where you can pre purchase ePacks to get discounted dorm room accommodation. If you're travelling as a couple or with a group of friends you just need to leave a note in the booking or drop them an email to make sure that they book you into the same room.

Whilst we were in town we ate at Zenhouse again but this time we discovered a place to get vegan rolled ice cream on the way there. I was so excited! I've been seeing rolled ice cream all over the place and I was beginning to think that I'd never get the chance to try it. Scroll's options include two fruit sorbets which I didn't try because their other option is a coconut based blueberry and lychee ice cream which was just as amazing as it sounds.

It was super creamy and the fruit flavours really popped. I loved it. We also got Baklava from Al Mina Mediterranean Patisserie which is conveniently located on the road out of / into town if you're heading to Broken Hill. I love baklava and finding it without honey is always such a treat.

We also ate at Cherry Darling's Bake House which is a fantastic all vegan bakery located a short tram ride away from the centre of the city. There were a huge range of goodies to choose from including savoury pies, cupcakes, slices, and doughnuts. The pies were particularly delicious and the flavours on offer were so fun, the mac and cheese filled Bromac and the cheeseburger pies sounded great but my allergies foiled my plans to try those and I ended up with an utterly delicious steak, potato and mushroom pie. The doughnuts were some of the best I've ever had, Nick and I shared one that was stuffed full of Oreo's and it was ridiculously good. We also swung by Everything Vegan and tried some wonderful blue cheese made by Studio Voodoo, definitely check that out if you're in the city. 

What are your favourite road trip snacks? Have you ever taken an epic road trip? Talk to me in the comments!

This post was sponsored, in part, by YHA Australia. As always all opinions are my own.