Darwin

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Geo: -12.4613, 130.842

We made it to Darwin on 23rd May. Still hot here 33 - 36 every day. We booked into Howard Springs Caravan Park which is about 20 km out of Darwin but it's like being at Gawler with the freeways and 100 km speed limits it takes no time at all to get into the city (not sure you can call it a city). Darwin is a city of suburbs and most of these are small with their own major shopping centres Big W, K Mart and Target. No big stores here like Myers.
Lots of local fires that just start and burn for awhile. No-one takes any notice of them at this time of year. Adelaide would have water bombers lined up. The fires just burn the low grass and then go out!!! Even the gum trees don't catch on fire. There is a serious lake of widlife here, not sure where all the kangaroos etc are.
We have been to see Fanny Bay, Nightcliff Beach, the WW11 Oil Storage Tunnels, and a few other sights. Darwin has a great beach front without high rise buildings or apartments. You can drive all along the coast with parks, playgrounds, walking & bike tracks, picnic areas for all to enjoy. The beaches here are stunning but empty. Apparently the stingers are in the water rather than crocs. The water is so clear you can see crocs coming. We went to Mindil Beach for tea and to watch the sunset. They hold a market every Thursday and Sunday from April to October and the amount of people on the beach is amazing. Markets sell the usual trinkets and a lot of hand made things such as jewellery, smelly candles etc. There were some croc skin items for sale but most of them were over $1000. Needless to say we didn't buy anything there.
Darwin infrastructure is on the fast track. So much building of new housing sub divisions and road works even making existing roads into 4 lane freeways.
We went back to Adelaide River to do a Croc Jumping Cruise. The cruise went for about an hour. The tour guide started with a talk about life jackets!!! Telling us that crocs love bright colours and the jackets are orange. She suggested we throw the jackets in one side and jump in the other if we need to. Don't know where we would swim to as the crocs are on the bank and everyone we see on top there are 5 more under the water. Large crocs can hold their breath for 4 hours and swim 35km per hour. Dog paddling won't get us far. To top it off there was a snake on the boat that slithered past me and hid in front of the boat. Tour guide was more worried about the green tree snake than the crocs. I had my eye on both. Still we made it safely to shore and had a great day.

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Photos

Nightcliff Beach
Funny little crabs

Comments

[Cugleys]

Great photos guys, looks like you're having an awesome time. Great win by the Crows last night, did you get to watch the game. Steve abdominal I did the roof climb, it was great, but torrential rain just as we got seated up there to watch
the first quarter, absolutely drenched, but at least we got to do the while climb before the rain. Crappy weather today, more rain and have both heaters going, so enjoy that lovely weather you lot. XxxSandyxxx

[Jeff]

Very impressive photo's and love the commentary. You are obviously having fun and appear relaxed. I note that there are lots at the beach but no one is in the water. All is fine here at Thebby. The boys are getting the jobs organised for yo
u to do when you get back. Your desk is being used by the new female tech staff member and has reorganised the draws and computer. You will need to remember to put the toilet seat down every time when you get back. Love from the gang here and have a coldy under the lean to for us.

[Haidee]

Great photos! I love the story of the green tree snake in the boat!

[Clint]

Amazing Sunsets

[Clint]

Great Pub with huge meals

[Emir]

Griff, is the name of the place misleading a bit? lol