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Published: August 13th 2006
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Darwin Sailing Club
What can I say - the sunset was gobsmackingly gorgeous! Well here we are in very sunny and warm Darwin. Wes is prancing around like a spring lamb just because he can now wear his shorts full time (although he has been able to do that since Katherine - it obviously takes a while for him to trust that it’s not going to get cold again!)
For the 10 days we are here it ranged between 30-35° and the minimum night temp was 15° with most nights being 17°. The locals thought that 15 was freezing!???@#** And if I thought Wes was a blanket hog when it was cold, then the heat has uncovered a whole new dimension to his sleeping habits…the total bed hog. He spreads out trying to get cool… bare bum and all. Oh I’m sure that goes into the “too much information” for you all category, but it’s my life on the road and somebody needs to know what I am putting up with! Lots of the old ‘hares’ have single beds in their caravans and I am thinking that maybe they are not so silly and old after all!
Most of our time here was spent swimming and relaxing around the pool, but we
Wes on Mindil Beach
Included this one so you can all see his new haircut. visited the Darwin Museum and Art Gallery which was fantastic- one of the best museums we ever have visited. There was a great exhibit showing the devastation of cyclone Tracey on xmas eve 1974. There was a sound booth where a recording of the wind and rain during the cyclone was replayed - very scary. There was also the stuffed crocodile called ‘Sweetheart’ who was accidentally killed whilst Wildlife Officers were trying to relocate him away from human habitat and he was 5.4 metres long! We have seen photos of crocodiles of less than that length whose stomach contents when cut open reveal whole human body parts, like arms and legs etc.
The other museum we visited was the Military Museum at Fanny Bay, which was also really good and displayed all the information on the bombing of Darwin by the Japanese during World War II. The bombing was much more extensive that the Australian public was informed about for fear that it would cause a national panic.
We had lunch at a nice restaurant at the Cullen Bay Marina and went to the Sailing Club twice for dinner to watch the sunsets. We played golf at the
Royal Darwin Golf Club with our friends Bernie and Anne (the same ones we played with in Alice Springs) and even saw a frilled neck lizard on one of the fairways - the first one I have ever seen in the wild.
We wandered around the city and toured through Parliament House which has a beautiful view over Darwin Harbour. We also went to Aquascene where you feed wild fish at the edge of the water. They have been doing this for about 40 years and so a lot of different sorts of fish come up to be fed the bread (I’m not sure that feeding them yeasty white bread is such a good idea, but they didn’t seem to be suffering at all). You just take your shoes off and go up to knee level and hold some bread out and heaps of them come and eat it out of your hand. It feels really strange when they brush past your legs.
The Mindil beach night markets was another great outing. They are set right on the beach where we took our wine and beer and watched the sunset, bought some great food from the market stalls
Frilled Neck Lizard on Golf Course
Unfortunately despite a few pokes, we couldn't get him to flare his frill neck. for dinner and wandered around the other stalls, heading home around 9.30pm (and yes, Wes was still skipping around like a spring lamb in his shorts).
Oh, and while we were here, Wes had his much sought after buzz haircut - a very short number 3 all over. He loved it, but I thought he looked, at best, like an American marine and at worst, like a prison escapee! I have since gotten used to it - it does show off his beautiful blue eyes.
Our friends from Melbourne, Graeme and Jennien who have been travelling around the West Coast in the opposite direction to us arrived in Darwin on the Sunday and we caught up with them for a couple of BBQ’s and they also came to the sailing club on our second visit. They gave us some great advice about what to avoid and what not to miss around the West Coast.
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Dom
non-member comment
Glad your having fun, things here don’t change, work, renovations and kids, Debs only got 5 weeks to go till D day and Jacob says he cant wait, In that time I have to fit a new kitchen and tile the bathroom and put a new ceiling and floor in the kitchen too, So Wes you’d better get on a plane down to Sydney... You don’t know how good you both got it sitting there with a beer talking about Gallipolis to your old ANZAC travellers... Just kidding im just plain envious. Keep having Fun DOM