1 month ago
9
January 22, 2026 — 5:00am
The camp manager is a man accustomed to danger. You’d need to be to run a place where elephants could come barging through to take a closer look at the plunge pool, or hyenas might decide to snooze beside one of the guest’s tents. Even so, the manager’s dark eyes grow large with trepidation as he repeats what I’ve just asked him. “Tim. Tam. Slam?” he says slowly, his brow furrowed.
We’ve just finished dinner at Selinda Explorer’s Camp in Botswana’s Okavango Delta, seated outdoors beneath a glowing chandelier suspended from a tree. The mood is buoyant after a wildlife-filled evening game drive, so I decide now is a good time to reveal the pack of Tim Tams I have stashed in my suitcase for exactly this moment.
Tim Tams have been a staple in my bags since I first started travelling professionally as a journalist and photographer a decade ago. At the beginning, they were just for me – a familiar treat to give me comfort when I was far from home or an easy sugar hit on my third red-eye flight towards Argentina – but I’ve learned the iconic Australian biscuit also makes the perfect icebreaker for a solo traveller.
Much of my job involves interviewing people I’ve just met, often with a language barrier, or asking subjects to pose for portraits, which can feel invasive or awkward, meaning I need strategies to either help them feel comfortable or to bring together a group of strangers. I’ll wait for the opportune moment to introduce my unsuspecting friends to the “Tim Tam Slam”.
If you’ve been living under a rock, then let me explain. The honoured manoeuvre starts by biting both ends off the biscuit and then using the body as a straw to siphon up hot tea. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say the instant the chocolate coating and interior biscuit collapse into one deliciously molten mess is sheer ecstasy.
But the true beauty is that chocolate biscuits are a phenomenon that transcend cultures and borders. One frigid evening after a day hiking in the far reaches of northern Pakistan, with the thermometer plunging towards zero, my companions light up when they hear the rustle of a Tim Tam packet. Another time, the humble biscuits are a small, desperately needed, solace for our film crew trapped on a catamaran in rough seas in the Florida Keys. One of my favourite memories is celebrating a spectacular polar bear encounter in Arctic Norway, laughing with new friends over steaming mugs and licking melted chocolate off our fingertips before it froze.
Everyoneloves a bikkie, no matter where they are from, and the dynamic always changes afterwards, making interviews and shoots much more relaxed.
What I didn’t expect was to become a kind of ambassador for Australia because this little ritual inevitably becomes a cultural exchange. The English will, inexorably, argue that their Penguin biscuit – the poor man’s Tim Tam, if ever there was one – is superior (it isn’t, and as of October can’t even be called chocolate anymore).
Canadians will talk at length about maple shortbread, while Americans go weak for the home-baked chocolate chip. I’ve had Mexicans pull out bottles of tequila in reply to Tim Tams (not an ideal pairing, but I’ll take it). If you’re wondering whether there are any fellow Australians nearby, you’ll find out as soon as the packet opens.
Perhaps the most rewarding part is converting the curious and the daunted. After taking a sip from his tea and swallowing his Tim Tam whole, the camp manager in Botswana turned to me with a big smile on his face. “Can I try that again?” he says, reaching out for another.
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