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Published: November 14th 2010
G'day all, hope you all well.
Mary, Dennis and Ant dropped me off in Darwin City centre where I would be staying for a couple of days, a rest after working hard for two weeks! Left my backpack in the hostel storeage as can not check in until one and yes you have guessed it went for a wander around Darwin.
It was only nine in the morning and it was already really hot getting into the thirties at midday. First visit was a macdonalds Mcmuffin and a coffee and some free wifi before walking through town and down to the harbour waterfront. The harbour or wharf area has lots of new buildings mainly residential flats , restaraunts, wave pool and a sandy cove for safe swimming away from jellyfish, sharks and crocs.
I visited some WWII underground oil storeage tanks from the war, not that they were ever used, not that exciting but something to see and they had some cool pictures of the time. Darwin was bombed heavily during the war and the city was bombed by the Japenese, the same fleet that bombed Pearl Harbour.
Walked past government house and
up through the Bicentennial Park along the waterfront up to Doctors gully, saw a bat hanging in the trees sleeping.
Finished walking around one, by now really sweaty, and headed back to the hostel to check into my room. Met my new roomie Ben from Ireland then headed back out for another wander, ended up in Shennanigans Irish bar for a couple pints of Guiness and watch the Arsenal Man City game.
I was going to visit Crocosaurus Cove, a crocodile "park", but heard from my roomie that it was not very big and the crocs were kept in really small tanks so decided against it.
Met up with Ben and had a few jugs of beer and ended up having an early night.
Next morning headed back down to Darwin harbour to chill in the sun by the sandy cove reading the paper etc. Darwin is the only Australian city in the tropics with a population of around 110,00 people, the city being a lot smaller than I expected.
Later in the afternoon went for a drink in the hostel bar and met Gary a kiwi and his son plus Jess
from Melbourne. We had quite a few drinkies together and later headed down to a local club for TOT (guess what stands for!) and headed back to the hostel around one in the morning, Jess had to leave early for a Kakadu tour and I had to get a bus to the train station.
Think I said before I had originally planned to head down the west coast via Broome to Perth but as the wet season hit early expected roads to be closed, plus did not see any adverts for lifts in the hostel and not sure if there loads to see but I am sure it is very beautiful!
So caught the bus to the train station and then the Ghan again all the way down to Adelaide in one hit, other than the train stops in Katherine and Alice Springs. Just walked around Katherine this time, strange place! Same with Alice just had a wander and a pint in the pub, strange being back some where already been but good as familiar with where to go.
Arrived in Adelaide and stayed in the same hostel I was in last time I
was there, met a guy called Ben from Pompey! plus a scottish guy Douglas and a swedish guy David. First day there the weather bit dodgy and ended up walking around the Botanical gardens, visiting the amazonian water lily house, an economic food museum and the International wine centre. Stopped for a deserved Guiness before heading back to the hostel and chilling with the people I had met.
Next day David and I got a couple fo rental pushbikes (free!) and biked it down to Henley beach then back into the city using the bike path along the Torrens river, stopping occassionally to see the wildlife (black swans and pelicans!) We ended up doing 30km in the end and the sun had been out so was a nice day. Yes I know we look stupid in the bike helmets but it is the law here!
Walked down to the train station in the evening to catch the Indian Pacific train which runs from Sydney to Perth (4352km!). The journey lasted 38 hours over two nights, stopping at Cook whioch had 6 people living there and also Kalgoorlie. Kalgoorlie was bigger than I expected, originally built due
Real pelicans!
They are massive!to the gold mine in the area which is the largest gold mine in the world with a open mine of 400m deep and a couple of km long.
Seemed really quiet there, went with a couple of people I had been chatting to on the train, to a pub, where they had "hot skimpies" lol, basically scantily clad barmaids. Thats what you get in a mining town!
Train arrived in to Perth early Tuesday morning where I then had to get a tube, yes a tube, to Warnbro station where Tania was meeting me, another helpx host.
Perth is one of the remotest cities in the world, second in fact, being over 2000km from next nearest city(Adelaide) with a population of around 1.7 million
Tania lives about 30 mins out of town on a 4 acre property in Baldivis. Her husband had died a few years ago and she was renovating her property to sell. She lives in a lovely house with a pool and 4 acres of land. Her husband used to renovate cars so there is a large "shed" with loads of old cars and engines etc around the
place. Some scrap merchants are coming to take away next week.
There is a German guy Andi here at the moment plus a Taiwanese girl Peggy just arrived. Andi and I took all the old rusty metal guttering down and have been prepping for painting the veranda all the way around the house. There is a swimming pool here but the pump is broken and the water is green! So we will be pumping it out and cleaning the pool.
Tania has a pool table so Andi and I have been playing lots of pool in the evenings, all different versions, German, French, Australian and English! I have my own room and the weather is great here, hitting the high twenties and mid thirties but not a humid heat, so would be nice to sort the pool out!
Tania has a dog called Ruby, who on first arrival is a bit aggressive and protective but after a day she was fine with me, I am the dog whisperer after all!
Tania paid for the three of us to go out one night to an Irish bar in a town about 30 mins
drive from here. They had a live band on but it was all a bit weird with 70s music playing and young people dressed strangely dancing to the rubbish music!lol
We played Pictionary one night, hilarious with a Taiwanese and German Lol both had transaltion dictionaries out, hard work but fun!
Peggy, Andi and I went to Rockingham one weekend, had fish and chips on the beach, loads of seagulls hanging around! On the way we let Peggy drive for a bit, but she only used to automatic so was a bit scary!lol
We managed to get a water pump going and started to pump the dodgy green water out of the pool, which means after 18 hours pumping we will be getting in and shovelling out whatever crap is in there!
The following week we continued with the painting, the "ceiling" and the woodwork on the veranda, quite a relaxing job really with the sun shining and music playing while we work.
Whoever does their own painting will know cutting in is always the nightmare, we have 50 beams to cut into and ended using small artists paintbrushes! lol
Prob another couple days to finish then onto the green pool which is now emptyish.
Like it here and planning to stay a bit longer than the original two weeks. Company good and feel chilled here, I know I should probably be seeing more of Oz but hey I am in charge! lol
Probably head to Sydney third week of Nov, hook up with Collette for a week (met her in NZ) then couple weeks up east coast, only want to see Whitsundays, Fraser Island and chill on a beach in Cairns for a week before flying home (Quantas, but not an A380!)
Man turned up today to start clearing away the car wrecks, with a forklift thing and large truck, which means we will have to get the sit on lawn mower out soon to cut the grass. Will post some "after" pictures of the painting and pool next blog!
Chill
Larf
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lee gibbs
non-member comment
seems ages ago i read one of these mate, i thought you might have been kidnapped and gang raped by a bunch of koalas its been that long. that pool looks pretty gross, i hate to think what might be at the botton of that, check for crocs i reckon. and i cant believe you put a picture of the sleeping fruit bat on but not one of the "hot skimpies"!!!!!!!!!! by the way what is TOT? terribly odourous t@@t, tot of tequilla...... i dont know so inform us all..... glad ya havin a bonza time and cant wait to see ya at xmas.