Saturday 31/08
The car left Litchfield on the back of a tow truck. A broken shock absorber has brought us to this reality. To add to the woes RACV did not tell AANT that there were five people to bring out so the tow truck didn't have a crew cab! Angela and the girls were left at Litchfield until Nicholas could drop the camper at the caravan park, car at the repairer, collect a hire car and get back to his ladies. The girls found a cool place at Litchfield, Buley Rock hole, to spend the day until Nicholas returned. Since there was no mobile coverage at Litchfield we used our handheld radios to raise each other when in range.
Nicholas did not get back to Litchfield until almost 4pm. Driving from Litchfield to Darwin is like driving from Melbourne to Traralgon and Nicholas did that drive three times! The only hire car available was a Hyundi Getz, and when driving back to Litchfield it Getz going pretty quick!
It was late by the time we got back to the caravan park, all of us, so after completing the setup we headed off to the park cafe for dinner. No one felt much like cooking after a day like that.
Sunday 01/09
Fathers' Day
It was an early start for Nicholas who was jumped on early by three girls "Happy Fathers' Day daddy!" Nicholas was well spoilt for the morning and was surprised how well the girls kept the secret in such confined space. Nicholas' snooping skills need some refining obviously. We headed out to explore Darwin. Casuarina Shopping centre is Darwin's largest. The girls had some Dymocks vouchers to spend, Nicholas needed a haircut and there were some groceries required for us to eat again.
We still had some time up our sleeves before dinner so we went to Mindil Beach Market for a wander through in preparation to eat dinner there Thursday night. These markets are a fantastic collection of food outlets of every nationality conceivable, trinkets, touristy things, handcrafts, and services. The girls settled on a DIY slushy, Nicholas got some hot sauce, Angela got a pool dress and Bianca and Chantelle found 'onesies' to match Chelsea's.
We were meeting Nicholas' brother David and his wife Jennie for dinner at the Trailer Boat Club Darwin; on the recommendation of the Hinchcliffe's who we met at Longreach. The Boat Club had a view over the water and we secured a table with a uninterrupted view of the coming sunset. David and Jennie joined us with their pet, Archimedes, the NT Carpet Python! Yes we had a snake at our table! Chelsea, Chantelle and Bianca took to him like he was a puppy, Angela is not a fan of things slithery and Nicholas was happy to have the snake wrap around him when he could.
Archimedes is 20 months old and 110cm long, and will grow to 300cm when fully grown and could live 25 years. A very sensible pet when you think about it, he eats only once entry three weeks, and goes to the toilet very infrequently (and small). Archimedes can be left home alone for a week with no problem. The council doesn't require you register that pet. Perfect.
The sunset did not disappoint! The meal was sensational, great suggestion Hinchcliffes, and after ten years in Darwin David and Jennie had not been there before. After dinner we all went back to David and Jennie's apartment for coffee and a puppet show by Chelsea. What a great location they have, walking distance to Darwin city and the waterfront.
Monday 02/09
A day for getting things done and catching up on some schoolwork. Nicholas chased down what was happening with the car and needed to make many phone calls. After a big day of school work the girls celebrated with ice cream!
Tuesday 03/09
Our car is lost! Our car was collected from the first repairer to where AAMI wanted it quoted. Nicholas rang the repairer and the car was not there, and they knew nothing about a car coming from AAMI. After several phone calls the car was located late in the afternoon at another repairer, who had no paperwork or any idea what needed to be done to our car. Great AAMI a full day lost on the car.
The family all spent the afternoon at the Darwin Waterfront wave pool. The Waterfront is a family friendly entertainment area that really works in Darwin. Most weekends there is some sort of activity on at the waterfront area. The wave pool goes all day with lifeguards and cost just $16 for a full day for families. There is also a free beach area that is patrolled and is safe for swimming away from stingers and crocodiles. Lots of green open space to picnic on, some restaurants, hotels and apartments. This precinct works so much better than Docklands in Melbourne due to the weather and outdoor culture of Darwin. There were more people at the Waterfront on a Tuesday afternoon than at Docklands most weekends!
On the way back home we stopped at the repairer to collect something's from the car but the repairer had moved to new premises, and not updated the details anywhere. What is more they had misspelt the name of their new street on a sign on the door, putting it a long way away. Have a look in Darwin for McMinn st and then McMinns drv, a big difference adding an S to your street name.
Wednesday 04/09
Territory wildlife park is just up the road from where we were staying. We spent the whole day there. The wildlife park is huge! There is a bus train to take us from exhibit to exhibit. We started with Angela's favorite Australian animal group, reptiles in the nocturnal house. There was everything in this building, frogs, snakes, native rodents and bats. The girls had fun trying to find the animals in each exhibit. We found most of them. Some were either missing, eaten by enclosure mate or had very extreme camouflage.
Next we walked to the flight deck to watch the bird handler with his birds. They demonstrated many birds and how they hunt and fly. There was one bird that quite liked to eat emu eggs and has learned to use a stone to break open the thick egg and eat the contents. Then the barn owl came out and demonstrated its silent flight. There is no noise from its wings even when it flaps, amazing. The Brolga came and flew around and picked up food from the pond. Nicholas' personal favorite Australian bird the wedgetail eagle was brought out. In the north these birds are a lot smaller than they are in Vic and Tas. Down south they need larger bodies to keep warm in winter! We were even able to have our photo taken with it.
After a lunch break there was a meet the keeper at the flight aviary. The keeper brought with him a tawny frog mouth, which was young and was yet to be named, Nicholas suggested Port; and a mouse for the blue winged kookaburra. There was also meal worms to feed the other ground dwelling birds. Surprisingly the small girls quite enjoyed feeding the wriggling worms to the birds. The native thick knee bird particularly enjoyed the meal worms. Though the name of this bird is not actually correct because the thick knobbly bit is the ankle not the knee.
After the flight aviary we took the bus train to the aquarium exhibit. There were many tanks depicting the different wetland environments that exist in the NT. There is an extensive collection of fish from tiny little fish lungs to barramundi, rays and sawfish. And of course there is the very large tank with the estuarine crocodile relaxing in it. Seeing one up close it is easy to see how they are such an efficient hunter. When they move through the water they hardly make a ripple on the surface and their month is so large it could grab even the largest of prey without effort. People are still dangerously complacent about these beasties, even some locals. Just the previous weekend a local was taken while attempting to swim across a known croc river.
Thursday 05/09
We found the repairer and the car and have taken what we need out of the car and Nicholas tried to sort out the repairs so that parts didn't need to come from the UK taking five weeks! More phone calls to repairers and trying to get hold of the assessor to make arrangements.
We visited the WWII Oil Tunnels. Some things never change in government projects over the years. After one of the bombing raids over Darwin (more on that later) officials realised that their oil storage was vulnerable to attack. If you stick millions of litres of oil in big tanks on the ground the Japanese pilots can easily see them and target them on their bombing raids. Idea build secret subterranean storage bunkers near the harbour capable of storing millions of litres of oil safe from the Japanese bombs. Should only cost, what, a budgeted 200000 pounds. Close, the final bill was 1.1 million pounds (Myki)!
On the morning of 19 February 1942 Darwin was attacked by Japanese airplanes. The same squadron attacked Darwin as attacked Pearl Harbor only weeks prior. The attack was lead by the same Japanese commander. More Japanese planes attacked Darwin than attacked Pearl Harbor, more bombs were dropped on Darwin and more ships sunk in the attack on Darwin. And yet very little is known by Australian's of these attacks from north QLD, across to Katherine, Darwin, Wyndham, and down to Broome in WA.
After lunch we took the historical walking tour of Darwin city. These tours are usually referred to hysterical walking tours. The tour took us past some interesting buildings and local history from WWII and Cyclone Tracey. Darwin city is very quaint in comparison to Melbourne or Sydney. The CBD doesn't cover more than four or six blocks and because of the cyclone threat no really tall buildings. Darwin CBD has been remodelled by two significant events, WWII and Cyclone Tracy.
We finished the day with dinner at Mindil market. The food is so yummy and so spoilt for choice. Chelsea had the seafood platter that she had been salivating about since Sunday, Chantelle and Bianca shared some fresh Chinese, Angela enjoyed a seafood laksa and Nicholas had a pig and fig roll. We finished off the meal with some fresh fruit.
Friday 06/09
Friday was another school work morning then on to visit the Palmerston Water Park as reward for a full morning at 'school'. At the water park we bumped into Jeff and Tamara and children who we had met at Adel's grove. While all the children played together the adults were able to enjoy some adult conversation. We caught up with their trip from Lawn Hill to Darwin, and they had been to Kakadu on the way to Darwin. We got a good insight into what to see and do when we get to Kakadu.
Saturday 07/09
Another big day out today. We left Tumbling Waters early and headed into Darwin. We came across Parap Market and had to stop for a browse. Some delicious food for tasting and we purchased some tubs of NT fudge. Mmmmm very good!
After some lunch we met Jennie at the Waterfront for the popup zoo and endangered animals display. This is one of the wonderful activities that the water front precinct puts on most weekends. We were able to hold a little freshwater crocodile, pat a leatherback turtle that was swimming in a kiddie pool, learn how to identify cane toads and about a giant moth that a foundation is trying to improve numbers of in Darwin.
Auntie Jennie kissing a crocodile.
After the zoo we all went bak to Jennie's house to feed Archimedes, a frozen mouse. Since Archimedes only eats once every three weeks we were very fortunate to time a feed. It was amazing to watch a skilled predator strike the mouse and then swallow it down. The whole thing took about 10 minutes and the snake had an obvious bulge move down its length as the mouse slipped down.
David is on his way back from a work flight around NT and Jennie drove Nicholas, Chelsea, Chantelle and Bianca to meet him for a joy flight over Darwin. David's plane has only five seats so Angela volunteered to go shopping instead. Living in such close proximity we all need a bit of space from time to time. The flight is a great way to see Darwin and to get an understanding of flying around controlled airspace. Every time David wanted to show something he had to request permission from Air Traffic Control to move from one place to another and at what height he could fly. There is a heap of work going on in Darwin. There is a massive LNG plant under construction, which we flew over. Using the trucks as scale the plant and dock will be the size of a suburb when complete. The construction is adding up to 300 road trains per day onto some Darwin roads. David landed the plane at Darwin airport using the same runway that QANTAS uses! We taxied to the general aviation area and saw two helicopters being assembled that were flown in an antonov last weekend.
We all reconvened at David and Jennie's house to go to the Darwin Symphony Orchestra at the water front. We said it was a big day out! Angela had picked up a chook and salads to eat on the pier for dinner. The DSO was putting on a free concert to welcome troops back from overseas deployments. We were lucky to be with David because there was an area set aside for ADF and their families. David is a part time chaplain with the ADF so we all qualified! We got great seats second row with a great view. It was a fantastic concert of water themed music including the music of Blue Danube, Titanic movie and Swan Lake for Chantelle!
It was very late by the time we made it back to camp and we had an early start scheduled for Sunday.
Sunday 08/09
Way back at Cairns Nicholas received an email about Telstra launching Smurfs 2 movie Australia wide. Nicholas picked up five tickets for the Darwin launch. There were activities for the kids, face painting and colouring sheets and the movie was great, we all enjoined it very much. We had lunch at the shopping centre then back to camp for a quiet afternoon. Though on the way back we stopped at a roadside stall to buy a watermelon. This was no ordinary watermelon this was the most massive watermelon ever! It would have weighted over 15kg and was the size of two basketballs for $7. It took us almost a week to get through the sucker.
And then you infringed the Round-Australia-Touring rules......?
ReplyDeleteThis obviously a sore point for you Andrew. Perhaps we should ask some one that has been around Australia with their family?
DeleteNo, not at all........ eventually, one day.....soon.
ReplyDelete