Winter My Arse

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This morning the car was packed to capacity. Along with mine and Helen's stuff we were also taking Lou and Bill up to Darwin and they had a lot of stuff. We packed it all in and headed off for the final three hour trip to the top. With every mile north we went the temperature went up and up. Just before we got to Darwin we stopped off at the Aboriginal Art Gallery and were treated to a display of snakes, crocodiles and lizards. Before I had the carpet snake wrapped round my neck I wash assured that it was not going to bite me. The 2 foot long Blue Tongue Lizard on the other hand was very capable it biting but was apparently docile in the heat and didn't mind being picked up!!

After our little interlude with nature we continued into Darwin and found our hostel. It is right in the middle of the city but this city only has 71,000 people in it. Even though it is really small it is still the biggest place we have been in since Adelaide and it does feel strange being around people, coffee shops, bars and restaurants.

Darwin is baking hot and this is the winter. Not being used to the heat it has been quite hard work and the most energetic thing I have done so far is write a couple of postcards. The temperature at night isn't much better than the day time but at least they turn the air conditioning on in the rooms at night. Everyone here seems to be doing just one thing; sitting by the pool doing nothing. So far I've had a look round the city and now plan to have some relaxing time before doing my best to find some energy from somewhere.
We have found a great place to eat. The Vic Hotel does a meal for $1. It’s not the biggest meal in the world but it’s not bad for 45p.

Darwin has been a nice place to relax and do very little. Although the temperature has been baking hot for the whole time I have been up here I have now started to get used to it.
Sunday afternoon I walked to the night market which is held at Mindil Beach. It’s a congregation of music, arts and food stall. There was an amazing didgeridoo player who could play faster than anyone else in the world. I also found a food stall called the Road Kill Cafe, you kill it we'll grill it. I'm not sure how far that goes but they were serving up crocodile, possum, kangaroo, wallaby and camel. The kangaroo tastes quite like beef and the crocodile tastes a bit like chicken.
Mindil beach is the perfect place to see the sun set. Thousands of people come out to the beach every day to watch it. It was the first blood red sunset I’ve seen.

Back at the hostel it was the birthday of someone in our room and unfortunately he had spent the day getting very drunk and spent the night making sure we got very little sleep. The next morning at 3am Helen was off to catch her flight to Perth. Several hours later I was up and heading to Kakadu National Park.

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