8 months Already

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DAY 243

I am always in a reflective mood on an anniversary day like today when I let my mind wander to the facets of this trip. We have been away for 8 months today, which is gob smacking I always thought 5 weeks was a long trip. Caroline wonders how you go back to having a normal life and a two week holiday once or twice a year, that said I am sure we will cope.

As with my 6 month reflection my mind hasn’t changed, the trip has been amplified by the people we have met, the only downside is that our Christmas card list is now enormous.

Would I have done things differently? Oh for sure, a good trip is all about the planning, I was busy in the UK before I left and just threw my stuff in to a case and jumped on the plane, well thats what it felt like anyway. I know Caroline did a huge amount of planning even down to the clothes that she was taking (and what I was supposed to take!!), she spent hours reading maps and pawing through the Lonely Planet Guide Book. For me I think I relied a little too heavily on the planning that Caroline had done and perhaps had not taken the time myself to get involved as I should have been. I was confident in the fact that if Caroline had read the maps and decided that it should be on our itinerary then it was fine with me.

I think emotionally we have settled down a lot now, I didn’t really gets the pangs of home sickness, but my mind wandered back to our life in the UK which is doesn’t do that much now.

The biggest changes I have seen are in Caroline; she is just a different person than the one that came over with me on the trip. The differences are so subtle but they are there, she has always been a stand alone person with her own identity but I have definitely got the revised model.

Caroline tries even harder to achieve something now, something she may have let go in her previous life (UK) and I think a lot of it can be contributed to the walk in Hancocks Gorge in Karijini National Park, when she could have easily wimped out and gone back and never achieved the prize but instead pushed herself and has been rewarded with even greater confidence.

Caroline has always accepted a challenge, but now is ready for greater challenges, that I know she would not have been up for before, be they a climb, hike or swim with a 4.5 meter salty whilst having your t-shirt soaked in pigs blood she is ready to step up to the plate. I am disappointed though, she still loves Gucci handbags and Jimmy Choo shoes, some things never change and maybe those never will.

Today we had one of those days when we really didn’t do that much, certainly nothing exciting, unless of course you call the grocery shopping in Woolworths exciting. We needed to refill our gas bottle, typically we ran out last night, but thankfully Dave and Mirjam lent us their gas bottle so we were at least able to have a cup of tea this morning.

Caroline popped into the reception here at Howard Springs and asked if they knew where we could get a gas refill, she said “yes, here, but we have run out at the moment we are waiting for BOC to fill us up.” She also did not know where in Darwin you could get a refill, stating, “only a couple of places do it as it is a job that requires someone to have special training.” You don’t say! That is no help whatsoever, so she left.

We managed to find somewhere in Darwin who can do it and that was only after someone who we did find to be very helpful told us exactly where to go and even pinpointed it on the map for us. Thank you!

We speak to a local company who are waiting to receive some replacement goods of ours, but sadly we find that they are not yet in, they only get one mail bag a day and that is when they go to collect it from the Post Office at 10.00 every morning. We continue to wait with abated breath.

We sat around enjoying our time off and the sunshine, Mirjam cooked pancakes for our tea, we had a mixture of plain, banana and apple. They were particularly delicious especially topped off with some Cockys Joy!

At 7.00 pm we went down to the front swimming pool to see a ‘make your own didgeridoo’ demonstration as two guys had come to talk and give a demonstration on playing the Didgeridoo. The demonstration was very similar to what we had experienced at Didgeridoobreath in Freemantle i.e. the way we are told how to breath and what sounds to make.

These guys are father and son, the lad is a really good player whilst the Dad was not to bad either, he had been playing for 18 years but he says he does not practice enough to get the circular breathing correct. They showed how they look for certain pieces of Darwin Woolly Bark Gum to make the didges out of, but of course they have to be first hollowed out by termites, they do say that a proper didgeridoo is hollowed by termites but of course nowadays a certain amount of finishing with the correct tools is required to make the nice didgeridoos that we tourists purchase in the shops.

The father was born in Katherine and has spent his whole life up here in the “Top End”, his own father being a Ranger in the Nitmiluk National Park, their didges are hand painted by Aboriginals who he used to go to School with, who now live in communities in and around Darwin and Katherine.

I apologise we forgot to take our camera with us and didn’t get any photo’s.

We get back to camp, Richard joins us closely followed by Mirjam and Dave, we sit around chatting and watch the occasional possum wander past, until the coolness of the evening dictates that everyone wants to get back to their own camp and into bed.

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