Blogs from City of Darwin, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, Oceania - page 8

Frühstück in der Roma Bar an der Cavenagh Street. Erstens sehr gut und gaaanz viele unterschiedliche supertolle Sachen (Pancakes with banana & palm syrup, sago with coconut cream, palm syrup, grilled pineapple & dried papaya, ….), und zweitens kann so ein Frühstück auf der Terrasse schon was. Vor allem im Februar;-) Und endlich mal gratis Internet! Woran ich mich noch ein wenig gewöhnen muss, ist das gechlorte Wasser hier. Da lob ich mir unser Wasser in Österreich. Allerdings hat mich Gunther da ja schon vorgewarnt. Ist aber durchaus erträglich und nicht zu stark gechlort. Dafür ist der Orangensaft nicht gezuckert – schmeckt sehr gut. 14 AUD für ein Frühstück sind umgerechnet knapp 10 Euro – ist ganz ok. Lebensmittel sind hier generell teurer. Besonders schwer trifft mich, dass die Bananen so teuer sind – mehr als ... read more

Crocodiles So we have arrived in Darwin, after day of travel which was longer than expected (thanks Tiger). We are staying with Bill and Amina in a house surrounded by palm trees not far from the beach. Of course, going in the sea is only for the brave, although as Bill says, there are hardly any crocodiles. There are palm trees, ginger, limes and cassava in the garden, and it is 30 degrees and 75% humidity. Nathan is fine with this temperature, so long as he is immobile under a fan. Night market last night, with only a couple of stalls - but we still picked up some great food goodies including turnip and coriander sweets, and a good green paw paw salad (two chillis). Fried bananas and coconut balls also great. Today we got as ... read more

Day 75 Today I decided to actually do something so I joined the group trip to Borobuda the biggest Buddhist temple in the world. It was a 90 minute drive that turned into a 3hour trip due to volcanic ash from Mount Merapi built up in the rivers that burst the banks and blocked the roads. Well we eventually arrived and after some free water we set off on our guided tour. We weren’t allowed to climb the actual temple due to a clean up operation to remove the volcanic ash so we walked round it instead. Again going to sound really ungrateful but didn’t seem anything special or even particularly big! But glad I saw it! After about an hour and a half and battling through about 50 locals flogging crap in a very persistent ... read more

So today is the first day of the second 3 day tour I'm doing. Jannick, Max, Heather and I were still having breakfast when our new tour guide came to pick us up. His name is Keith (or Papa Keith) and he's in his 50's. The only other people on our tour were Christine from Scotland and Nicholas from Italy, and they had already been on another 3 day tour together with a different company. So just the 6 of us this time. We stopped at the Tropic of Capricorn for photos, and then stopped again at the Barrow Creek Pub which is where the overland telegraph station used to be. From there we went past the Devils Marbles, and had a wander round them for an hour or so. It was very hot so we ... read more

Monday 4th October Well, after the last blog entry, I wanted to be a bit more upbeat, but we've not had the best of starts today. First port of call was the Darwin Dam (Darwin Damn, more like, as there were barricades preventing any viewings). Never mind, we thought, we'll head to Berry Springs for a swim. It looked absolutely stunning, but was closed for the day (we think they may have found a big croc in the water). Life in the outback seems to be trying to tell us something, so we decided to head back into Darwin itself a day early. En-route we saw quite a major bush fire (luckily it didn't originate from 2 English tourists cooking pot noodles). It feels really good to be back in a city and we went to ... read more