Darvall Park

Australian park barbecues are almost always free electric hotplates on a stand, worked by a push button that runs the plate for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time. You bring food, oil and something to scrape with; you bring no fuel at all.

The plate is shared and it is rarely clean. Regulars arrive with a scraper and a bottle of oil, heat the plate empty for five minutes, scrape it down and only then start cooking — which is also the fastest way to avoid whatever the last group cooked.

Weekend mornings go early at the popular reserves. Most councils do not take bookings for individual plates, so a table near one is first come, first served.