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We had a good weekend and managed to go to the pictures on Saturday night to see a film I just can not remember what it was called, its an age thing, our Sunday mainly consisted of getting everything ready for me to head out to Darwin

Our time is so precious now, every minute we can spend together seems to be a bonus, I never thought the adventure, would head in this direction, in my wildest dreams, its seems our lives seems rock and roll, but it comes at a price.

Caroline dropped me off at Canberra airport my flight was not until 9.30 so Caroline could see me off and I could get my flight, and Caroline could get in to the office for a sensible time.

The flight time to Darwin, is just about 5 hours, I took off at 09.30 and I was in Darwin by 1.30, as they are an hour and a half behind Canberra time.

Darwin airport is fairly weenie, nowhere near as weenie as Port Augusta, but still pretty small.
I was up here for 5 days and the company had hired me a car as it was cheaper than doing the taxi thing as I had a lot of popping here and there to do.

I collected the keys from Hertz, I had been given a new Toyota Corrolla automatic and I walked across the car park to find my steed.

Nowadays, you only have to be in the vicinity of the cars and press your key fob and the car finds you really, as soon as you see it flash its lights, hey presto, no more searching to be done.

I was soon at work, lap to open and getting on with what I needed to be doing, and managed to stay at my desk until 6.00pm.

The Darwin weather was really warm, and I had planned ahead and had travelled up in shorts, so was nice and comfortable.

The next part was going to be a bit of a challenge, Instead of sitting in the back of a cab, watching the world go by, and be delivered to my destination, I needed to find the route to my hotel about 18 K’s from where I was.

I managed to navigate all the way to my hotel, which had been booked as the same one as I was in last time. I parked the car in the multi story car park, grabbed all my luggage, and got to reception.

I tried to check in, sorry sir, we are full, no vacancies, we have booked you in to the Mantra, in Darwin centre.

I started to fight, I was tired from my day, and gave up, I just wanted a shower and to change and was directed to my new hotel, so had to re grab everything again, get to the car, pay for the parking and find my way out to my new digs.

When I got to the Mantra in Nuckey street, the concierge knew of the booking and had put me on the 10th floor, my room I have to say was beautiful, so I unpacked my clobber, hung my shirts, showered and went to find some dinner.

The whole week was like this, so I really don’t want to bore you with the details as it is not very exciting.

I really do like Darwin, it’s a very Hip town, and there is so much work up here, I have heard its 97% employment and the salaries are really high.

By Friday I was really looking forwards to going home and seeing Caroline, I was up at 4.15, packed my stuff, paid my hotel bill and was in the office and at my desk by 6.17 am as I had a lot to do before I took my flight at lunch time.
One of my colleagues was flying back to Sydney, I told him I had a rental car and I would give him a lift back and we both agreed we would leave site at mid day.

It was 12.15 by the time I got to the car, I had used ½ a tank of petrol and needed to re fill the tank before I gave it back.

On route to Darwin airport the sky came in as black as a nun’s habit, it rained for 5 minutes then was a clear as a bell.

I dropped Dean off at the main terminal with all the luggage and I was going to drop the car off in the hertz section of the “Hire car Returns”.

We I was reacquainted with Dean in the terminal, he said, “mate your flight to Canberra has been called”.

What, that’s early it is supposed to leave until 1.25 and its only 12.45 now, how wrong was I.

I get up to the Qantas luggage drop and the lady tells me, the baggage drop closed 10 minutes ago, she asks me how many bags I have and tell her I have three.

You can’t take three on board she tells me.

I have nothing I can throw away, fine she tells me, you will have to book another ticket for another flight as you can’t take three bags on board.

I have to decant all my bits and pieces in my rucksack and secrete them in my suitcase and computer bag I rush through security and they just love people in a rush and do what ever they can to prolong the agony and slow the process down as much as they can.

I get to the check in desk and I am the lost one to get on the aircraft, heavens that was a close one.
my pockets are full of things like my I-pod, heads phones, blackberry, book, you name it all things that are the overflow of my rucsack

Still I make myself comfortable and settle in to my seat, as the beast thunders down the runway and in to the afternoon sky heading home.
The flight time went pretty quick, I was sitting next to a guy who was from California, and had been away from the states for fifteen years, and had been based in some amazing places in the world, such as Azerbaijan, Mongolia, the Balkans, Gorgia and was now based in East Timor.

We chatted for about half an hour and he asked me if I lived in Canberra, which I said I did and went on to tell him, that a lot of Australians give Canberra a bit of a hard time.

Personally we like it, I think Architecturally it is a lovely city and there is only 300,000 people there and is a very easy city to navigate.

I watched the film, “the kings speech” on the flight which I though was an excellent film and would recommend it to anyone.

Soon enough the plane was touching down, the flight was about 15 minutes behind schedule, all my luggage was with me, so when I disembarked I did not have to wait for my bags on the Carousel.

There was my girl, looking gorgeous, full of smiles, we kissed and walked out of the terminal to the truck, where we chucked all my luggage in and headed out.

Caroline asked me if I had, had a good trip and I said that it had been worth while and we talked about our week, until the work conversation, was interrupted by the food conversation.

What shall we have for dinner, I said pizza and beer, so we drove to Flory to pick up two peperoni pizza’s and a six pack of beer.

We get home at about 8.00pm, its been a long day and we get our shoes off and dive headlong in to our dinner.

It is great to be back at home, with Caroline, back to normality, and looking forwards to our long weekend, as it is Canberra day on Monday so we get an extra day off, and we are planning to get out and about on our bikes and just be together.

Caroline looks to see what is on TV there is some chick flick, she said she would like to watch and said you’ll be asleep in while so I might as well watch it, which I have to agree with.

I can’t manage past 10.00pm I’m hanging I say I am off to bed, “step out of my cloths” which is a talent I have, and get in to bed.

The soft smell of the bed sheets and the familiar sounds are comforting, home is a place you can’t take for granted, I am happy to be here.

Monday like I have I said is a public holiday, I hadn’t realised that it was and stupidly booked a flight to Sydney at the end of the day, as I am on a course Tuesday and Wednesday, so I just thought I would be easier to go up Monday, so I didn’t have to ask Caroline to take me to the airport.

We were really looking forwards to spending our time together.

P.s sorry but I did not take any pictures apart from work ones, and I can not share those with you.

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Comments

[Sharon Blyton]

Fancy you 2 being in Canberra
Remember 2 years ago, we met at Princess Margaret Caves National Park (Sharon, Tim & young Wade), we had the t-van, parked virtually on top of you guys. I had been following your blog for a while when we returned from our trip (who needs a good book when you make such entertaining reading), then recently got back to looking up the blog, found you in the "big smoke". Sounds like life has taken a turn around for you since you have been here, you're in the fast lane now. Anyway, if you have a spare moment and would like to catchup, drop us an email. We live in Calwell, Tuggeranong, the "good" side of town... Cheers Sharon