What's in a quest?
Quests tend to revolve around a hero (in this case: me).
Typically, quests tend to follow a similar pattern in every story. The hero begins his adventure by travelling far away from home. In a far away place, he meets people and undergoes trials. Whatever skill he is reknowned for will win him favour. He'll learn new skills as well. There will be physical challenges and tests of will. He'll find that chance favours him as well. He gains what he has been seeking - treasure, love, power, or glory. He returns home triumphant and his deeds are recorded.

Travel far away from home
Leaving home may actually be the quintisessential element of a quest. I can't think of a hero out there who has quested from within the confines of his own living room. The reason why the hero leaves home varies wildly - sometimes he wants to, sometimes he's forced to. Sometimes his home is destroyed. He might go for love, or to search for his fortune, or to find his father (its always his father rather than his mother). The place he goes to varies as well, but usually its far away, often its unknown or shrouded in myth, frequently its dangerous and sometimes its really really weird - magical even.
As questing destinations go then, Australia is a pretty good one. Being from Britain, its about as far away as you can go before you start coming back again from round the other side. I don't really know anything about it, except from unreliable sources like movies and backpackers - for instance, did you know that Australians do not say "toss a shrimp on the barbie"? The Australians call the invertebrate sea creatures suitable for barbecuing "prawns" - any "shrimp" put on a barbecue woud fall straight through the grill on account of their tiny size. And contrary to what we learned from Skippy, kangeroos are rarely if ever kept as pets and are incapable of even rudimentary communication.
But Australia does contain many weird and bizarre creatures - every single one of them deadly in some form or another, no matter how cute they are. And the locals seem bafflingly unfazed by this. So its fair to say that Australia is a strange and dangerous place.
The best reason by far to have "travel far from home" on the list though is this: its already accomplished! A long checklist with many unticked items is a terrifying proposition. But add an item that's aready done, and immediately things start to seem more managable.
Travel far from home - COMPLETED

Learn the ways of the land
To thrive in a strange land and within a strange culture, the hero must learn the ways of the people he encounters. Often this involves eating disgusting food, participating in weird rituals and occasionally accidentally getting married to the chief's daughter.
Therefore, to better understand the culture of my girlfriend and the land I am staying in, I will try to partake in as many Australian cultural experiences as I can. A few that are on the shortlist:
Eat vegemite
Drive a ute*
Go surfing
Barbecue
Sing along to Cold Chisel* in the pub
Pet a kangaroo
Christmas on the beach
Christmas in July*
Something involving drinking
Slip slop slap*
Skinny dipping
AFL game*
Bathurst*
Ute = pick up truck
Cold Chisel = blue collar rock band/creators of unoffical Aussie national anthem
Christmas in July = cos they want to have Christmas in the winter (as well, not instead of)
Slip slop slap = sunburn protection advice: slip on a shirt, slop on some sunscreen and slap on a hat
AFL = Aussie rules football, a bloodsport not dissimilar to rugby
Bathurst = see "Jack's favourite fact about Australia"
This list is not complete or exhaustive - basically if anyone says to me words to the effect of "that's a typically Australian thing to do", I'll try to do it while I'm here.

Enlist aidRarely does the hero make his journey alone. Don Quixote had Sancho Panza... Luke Skywalker had R2D2... Jennifer Connelly had a bunch of muppets... heroes make friends. So shall I.
The third challenge then is to make friends while I'm in Australia and (ideally) get them to help me on the quest. The target number is either 6 allies or 12 friends, where an ally is deemed to be anyone who would otherwise qualify as a friend and who also materially helps me to complete the quest (and is therefore worth twice as much as a friend in quest-terms).

Hone existing skillsHeroes tend to be reknowed for being particularly good at something. Hercules for his strength, Sherlock Holmes for his deductive mind, Green Lantern for his... colour? (I'll double check that one). Usually, its fighting. I'm not really into fighting. If I have a superpower at all (I don't, but play along), its cooking. Its definitely the thing that I'm best at - I want to make a career in food and I want to be better at it for my own enjoyment as well. Heroes use their unique ability in their quests to overcome obstacles or win favour, so a cooking task is definitely going to be a feature in my 2012 challenge.

Last year's food based challenge was to cook 52 new dishes in 2011 - something new every week. Not a bad challenge, but ultimately I it didn't really work for me, as some of the new things I cooked I only tried once, didn't think were particularly good, and didn't bother trying to refine. This year I want a different approach.

Food in Australia is heavily influenced by the waves of immigration that have come to its shores. In particular, Asian cuisine is huge, though to lump traditions as diverse as Korean, Malaysian, Chinese, Thai, Indonesian and Japanese together as if they're one thing borders on absurdity. Or so I'm told, because, actually, I have no idea what the differences are. But I ought to know. So this year's culinary challenge is to learn.

Every month, starting from February, I am going to learn a new cuisine. I'm going to go to restaurants, read cookbooks and practice dishes until by the end of the month I can cook with confidence a three course meal that I feel exemplifies, without parodying, my favourite parts of the cuisine in question. For which cuisines to pick, I'm going to look in particular at those which have a major influence in Australia. The climax of this task will be a Modern Australian meal, drawing together as best as I can what this country has to offer.