On to Darwin

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So, our little camper tour has come to an end. Despite the disappointing weather on a couple of days, it has been a great experience overall. But we're both quite looking forward to the luxury of a hotel room again! We drive from Kuranda to Cairns, where we return the camper, and get a taxi to the airport for the next leg of our journey; Darwin.

We were forced to rationalise our luggage a little, as Jetstar (which I think is the budget side of Qantus) were enforcing their weight restrictions strictly. The check-in attendant said the restriction was clearly indicated, although he failed to find it in our itinerary after 5 minutes loooking. Oh well. The flight is pretty smooth. The terrain we pass over is quite amazing - mostly, it is simply amazingly barren. As we approach Darwin, there is a little more vegetation, but even that is suffering - we see huge plumes of smoke billowing from what looks like a very large forest fire. I think forest fires are quite a normal part of the ecology around much of Australia, but I don't know if that applies here particularly, and on this kind of scale.

We get a shuttle transfer to our hotel, and are delighted to find a bottle of champagne awaiting us on our arrival, the travel agents having indicated that this was our honeymoon! However, it is not chilled, so we put it in the fridge for later. Then we go out to explore Darwin a bit. Darwin is HOT! It's around 32 degrees celcius, and this is their winter! Anyway, we walk along the Esplanade in the direction of the Deck Chair Cinema, where you can watch films in the open air. They have a film showing later that night, Un Secret, which we decide we will go and see. But before that, we go off to find some dinner, eventually settling on a pub-dinner.

Later, it's off to the movie. On the way, we have a quick play on the swings (what do you mean 'how old are we?'?). When we get there, we have to wait around for them to open the doors, and get chatting to a friendly Dubliner who now lives here. Then we go it. They provide deck chairs, cushions and a bar - good stuff! Prior to the screening, you get a little warning that they share the venue with a few possums, so you should only leave food on the floor if you want to share it! The film itself is very engaging, if rather depressing, being a true story set in nazi-occupied France. The only light moment in it was a possum belting down our aisle like a bat out of hell... speaking of which, I think there were a couple of bats flying around too!

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