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Darwin 10-12 May 2014
We left Brisbane at 9.30am and arrived at 1.00pm in Darwin. We travelled to the Hilton Darwin by shuttle bus when the bus driver gave a quick explanation of what we were seeing on the way to some of the hotels. We noticed many changes since we had been in Darwin 9 years before, mainly 6 story high rises of units. But we were later going to see much more that has changed.
We settled into our hotel and went for a walk down to the waterfront. When going past Parliament House we popped in to see the inside with its wood-panelled walls and the green coloured Legislative Assembly. There was also a memorial for the old Post Office which used to be on the site before the Parliament House was built.
We later went for a walk past Government House, the Administrator's Offices, the memorial rock for the bombing of Darwin, the old Palmerston Town Hall ruin and Church of Christ on the way down to the new Darwin Waterfront and it's rows of restaurant on reclaimed fingers of land, the Convention Centre and wave pool. Wow, all these changes to an area
which was previously an eyesore.
We then rang our friends, Paddy & Sue Coleman and they picked us up from our hotel. We watched Essendon beat the Lions in AFL (sad but true!) and caught up with their son Peter and his children, James and Heidi.
At 6.00pm we walked across the road to the Trailer Boat Club to see the wonderful Darwin sunset and had dinner. Oh the sunset!!!! Beautiful. We then said goodbye to Paddy & Sue and was back to our hotel by 10.00pm.
The next day we had breakfast at one of the restaurants at the Waterfront and as it was Mother's Day, we were lucky enough to get the last table. After breakfast we picked up a car from Europcar and popped around to Paddy & Sue's, but missing seeing their daughter Leanne. Sue & Leanne had participated in the early morning Mother's Day Classic which was to raise funds for the breast cancer campaign.
We then drove around more of the Darwin CBD, and then the northern suburbs, driving past our old house in Thrush Court, calling into Ann Cooks place who use used to look after our children (but
no one was home), then drove past Jude and Paul's old house in Malak.
We then drove to Palmerston and Howard Springs. We saw the massive new village of demountable buildings that now house the workers from the new gas fields and the forces. There were 100s of buildings. Incredible.
The cost of real estate in Darwin has blown out, incredibly expensive due to the supply and demand...despite the massive number of new high rises.
We also drove around East Point but nothing new was to be seen.
At 5.00pm we drove down to Mindle Beach for the markets. The only change of this event was that it was bigger with more entertainment, but the food was just as good and the sunset was just as fantastic. We also walked along the coastal path through to the Darwin Museum. It was beautiful with a gentle breeze as the sun was setting. We were back on the beach just before sunset and just sat!!!
The next day was departure day for the Kimberley Cruise. We had breakfast outside the hotel at a cafe, packed up, took our bags down stairs and then drove to
the George Brown Botanic Gardens. We met 2 people from Boral, who were on our cruise, in the reception of the hotel so we invited them to come along with us. We then dropped the car back and walked back to the Hotel. At 12.30pm the bus picked us up from the hotel which was to take us to the Orion ship, our Kimberly cruise ship, which was docked at the Stocks Hill Warf.
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