They are not Virgins Anymore!!

---

DAY 238


Again I was up early yesterday, getting back in to my early morning routine; all these time changes have played hell on my internal clock.

We are just using this week in Darwin to relax and do nothing really as its been go, go, go for nearly 8 months. in fact Tuesday next will be our 8 month anniversary.

We haven’t seen any thing of Darwin yet, but I am not worried about that, we have done some pretty crucial maintenance things and there will be loads of time to see what Darwin has to offer.

Caroline managed to drag herself out of bed, and sit in the sunshine whilst I finished the blog off for “Not many days like these”

I can tell Caroline has wound right off as she went to look for her map this morning as I had tidied them up and said “oh I can’t be bothered we can do it tomorrow.” That’s good we need this time to relax a bit

Once we got ourselves together we had intended to go in to Darwin to find the Quantas exhibit, Darwin is steeped in world war II history, did you know that more bombs were dropped on Darwin than Pearl Harbour?

Did you also know that the Airline Qantas is the national airline of Australia? Qantas was founded in Winton, Queensland in 16 November 1920. The name was originally "QANTAS", an acronym for "Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services" a good shopping point question.

We finally get our arses in to gear jump in the truck and drive through the camp site, at the regulated 10 KPH, I let a fella pull out in front of me and he didn’t even put his hand up to acknowledge this (T*sser), I don’t care what nationality they are its just good manners.

A red 80 series Land Cruiser is next the driver puts her hand up to acknowledge that I let her through, “Blimey” I say to Caroline “That girl in that cruiser looked like Mirjam” (Yes I know the spelling looks incorrect).

Caroline looked and said she thought it was them, and at the boom gate jumped out and ran up to the vehicle, it was them and we just could not believe we had run in to them again such a long distance and time from where we first met, we often wondered how they were getting on

Mirjam (Van de Ven) and Dave (Boonkampf) were 2 people we met back on the 23rd April this year when we stayed at Martins Tank Lake. (Camps 5, 139 Western Australia, excellent little site). This can be read in our Blog “First Night Virgins Day 167”. It was Mirjam (Pronounced Miriam) and Dave’s first night sleeping in Australia other than in a hostel and we invited them to sit around our camp fire for the evening, Dave is a very laid back Dutchman and Mirjam seems to be the driving force behind their trip.

We do the quick hello’s and promise to come and find you later then we go to the left and they turn out to the right.

We were just amazed a country so big as this, with so few people, we just keep bumping into people we have met.

Caroline popped into reception to leave a package for a courier to collect, the old power pack for the laptop needs to be returned to Dell, so she has arranged for the courier to come and collect it.

Tonight is curry night, our friend Richard is coming over for some “nosebag” I have promised him a fantastic curry and that is what he will get. Its funny we used to entertain at home quite a lot, and our house was usually busy on Saturday nights around our dining table, we have sort of fallen back in to that, just minus the house and the dining room table, which is nice.

We get to Woolworths, grab a basket and push it around, I said to Caroline that we may as well cook for Mirjam and Dave as well, so just get a little bit more, on the groceries front and we will be set.

We get back and it is sweltering, Caroline reads the thermometer in the trailer and it said 40 Degree’s, we are lead to believe that there is a British heat wave that has lasted 5 minutes and everyone is heat exhausted, its so funny.

Caroline hears the swimming pool calling, so we grab our swimmers and hit the pool, its nice and fresh in the water, we swim around for an hour or so, then its time for lunch.
We purchased a toaster in Woolworths, so if we are on a powered site there will never be a shortage of toast, as the camp kitchen here does not have a toaster, so we just could not miss the opportunity for toast and peanut butter for lunch Yum!
The afternoon just sort of slips away, with the uploading of the blog, Caroline has her head in a book and me having a snooze.
We pop round to see If Dave and Mirjam are back, they are but they are not looking too Happy, they have been in a road traffic accident this afternoon, and the car is wrecked, bizarrely they had been out putting for sale notices up trying to sell the vehicle. Mirjam is terribly upset, still nobody is hurt, well its doesn’t appear so, so we ask them if they would like to join us for dinner and they say yes, they both looked relieved as they said yes, I think it will help take their mind off today’s events.
I start to prepare the curry carefully preparing the chillies with my trusty pocket knife, its as sharp as a razor, and perfect for the preparation of chillies. In between preparation we see that some of our great friends in the UK are on Skype, Chris and his wonderful wife Willemien have just signed on to Skype so we give them a call, it was one of the best quality Skype calls we have had to date, with no time delay and great reception.
The chicken is browned, and we are set to go, Mirjam and Dave turn up and so does Richard, he brings a snack with him, Crackers with a Herb and Cashew dip, but I told him not to scoff too many of those or else it will spoil his dinner, he laughs I must sound like his mum.
The final stage of cooking the curry is to put it in the camp oven, on top of our home made camp cooker with heat beads as Stuart (Broome) had shown us.
The curry cooked really well but being self critical I think the sauce was a bit thin as I was heavy handed with the Coconut cream, though everybody enjoyed it, we ate it with nan breads, poppadoms and basmati rice.
Afterwards we sat around talking; we looked through some of Mirjam and David’s photos and saw one of us when we were at Martins Tank Lank.
It was another warm evening, we were all thirsty, by 9.30 we were all exhausted so Richard, Mirjam and David all went back to their camps, we tidied up camp, put the remainder of the curry in the fridge and off we went to bed.

We forgot to mention that yesterday 1st July was Territory Day here in the Northern Territories, last night we were surrounded by fireworks, or firecrackers as they call them here. The fireworks were amazing, we sat in camp and watched the skies light up with the colourful and powerful rockets, it seemed to upset the wildlife around us, the Possums were screeching wildly the birds were panicking and shrieking.

Even when we went to bed, the skies were still being lit up and the sound of explosions could be heard in the distance.

Territory Day signifies the Northern Territory being founded, however it was founded on 1st January 1911, 1st July 1978 is when self government was attained and on that day the Territory flag was hoisted, thus 1st July is a day of celebration.

It seemed to be a good day for Territorians with the celebrations.

---