Darwin NT week two

IMonday 09/09

After a extremely busy weekend Monday needed to be a bit low key, so Angela and Nicholas could recover. The morning was spent getting things done around camp and some more school work (we keep adding about school work into the blog in case any of the girls' teachers are reading). 

At the caravan park we are using bore water. The water has an interesting taste almost salty and maybe slimy. As we were driving past Bunnings we popped in to see about a water filter. We were in luck, there was an inline water filter with hose type connections. Having the filter made a huge difference to the taste of the water. Though if we put water in the freezer and the water froze the last little bit of water that didn't freeze was super salty. (Mrs Shrimpton's grade can you work out why the unfrozen water was so salty?)

We also happened upon a great cafe in Palmerston, it's called Ben and Sam's and the drinks and cakes are very good, iced coffee was top shelf. 

Bianca catching up on her portfolio at the cafe. 

Tuesday 10/09

Angela is a bit nervious today, she is having her haircut by students at Charles Darwin University! Nicholas is terrified because while Angela has her treatment Nicholas is taking all three girls for Chelsea and Bianca to have haircuts, pressure. We dropped off Angela at CDU and wished her luck. The salon was extremely well appointed and some of us felt confident and if it didn't go well there was months for it to grow out (or back) before we got back home. 

Chelsea and Bianca's haircuts went well and while we waited for Angela the four of us went to the Palmerston Library to catchup on some reading and update apps on the iPads. We finally got the call that the students had finished with Angela's head so we nervously decamped from the library and drove back to CDU. What a great job the student did on Angela's head. A very professional finish and equal to any at a qualified salon, probably due to the close tutor supervision. Apparently the mannequin next to Angela was not so lucky!

Because we were looking so dapper with fresh haircuts we went back into Darwin to the Art Gallery, Museum and Cyclone Tracy Display. The museum had a great children's discovery centre (school just does not stop on holidays). The girls learnt about never ending reflections, fulcrum theory, magnetic objects and inherited traits. The museum also had lots of preserved animals to look at from the NT. The cyclone exhibit had a history of the build up to Tracy through to the reconstruction effort led by Major-General Alan Stretton. There was a sound booth that continuously played a recording of the wind noise of Tracy at the same volume when she passed over Darwin Christmas Day 1974. To enhance the effect the room was blacked out making the experience quite frightening. 

http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs176.aspx

Wednesday 11/09

Our car is due to be ready for collection latter today. We had promised the girls that we would spend a day at Leanya water park with a BBQ lunch. The two water parks in Darwin are free and operated for the government by YMCA. Leanya is a monstrous water park. There are three water slides, a massive play area that shoots, drops, or spurts water at you from every angle and a massive swimming lagoon. The play area is topped with a huge bucket that fills then dumps 100s of litres of water on the play equipment with enough force to knock people over. The girls had so much fun spending the day there, oh and mum and dad might have had a bit of fun too! 

The water park. Note the no smoking sign? If you smoke the bucket of water drops on you. 

The water slides. The red one was completely dark inside, a bit scary for some of us!

We left Leanya with just enough time to get to pickup our car, disappointed that they didn't wash the car for us. We were meeting David and Jennie for dinner but before dinner we stopped at the Darwin Botanic Gardens. These gardens were flattened by Tracy in 1974, the curator was away and he reportedly cried when he returned to see the devastation. The gardens have recovered well and some of the trees flattened by Tracy have regrown so have a horizontal trunk before a vertical trunk begins. Nature is so clever to enable a tree to recover like that with half it's roots exposed. 

We met David and Jennie at their house to go out for dinner. Archimedes had recovered from his feed and was happy to be handled again, he is one tolerant snake. We went to dinner at Tim's a local restaurant in the CBD, with Archimedes! This snake causes quite a stir where ever he goes. There were some US marines off a boat in harbour two were happy to hold but one was happy to take photos. Nicholas tried crocodile which was similar to chicken although drier and stronger when cutting across the grain. We said our farewells to David and Jennie at Tim's because we expected that to be the last time we would see them on this trip. 

Nicholas and Archimedes out to dinner!

Thursday 12/09

Today we drop the hire car back at the airport. Darwin airport whilst tiny has some innovative ideas. The airport gives you 15 minutes free parking! Yes you can park for 15 minutes to pickup or drop off with out having to take out a second mortgage. 

We went back to the library at Palmerston and the girls read some more books and Angela finalised our trip to Bali. Last Sunday we saw deals to Bali that were very reasonable. Yesterday we visited a travel agent and started the ball rolling. By the afternoon Thursday the flights and accommodation is fully booked and tomorrow we collect the tickets and vouchers and we leave on Monday. Oh and yes we did bring all the passports with us, you just never know. 

 

Friday 13/09

Friday the thirteenth so more school work to be completed. We really are trying to keep the three girls fresh with maths and English; history, geography and SOSE are pretty much taken care of with what we are seeing and experiencing on the adventure. 

After a swim and ice drinks at cafe at the caravan park we headed back into Darwin to collect our travel documents (and confirm that all names are correct and included) before Monday. We are all very excited (and a little nervous) at the thought of, as Chelsea expressed it, "going on holiday from our holiday". The camper will stay at Tumbling Waters and the car will stay at David and Jennie's apartment. 

We had dinner at the Palmerston Street Market. Angela had heard about this market and had not given it much more thought. As we were driving back we drove right into the middle of it. Finding a car park was a challenge but the food was fantastic. It seems that the Mindil market moves to Palmerston on Friday. After dinner Angela went on search of fruit for dessert. She came back with more watermelon and heaps of paw paw. The stall holder just kept giving her free ones. So yummy. 

Easier to find a patch of grass than a car park. 

Saturday 14/09

Since the repairer wouldn't wash our car we did and it took most of Saturday morning. There was dust EVERYWHERE! When the water hit the thickest of dust it ran like deep red blood and almost the same consistency. Somewhere someone said, "dust is just mud with the juice squeezed out" and we rehydrated lots of mud. Nicholas tackled the outside, Angela attacked the inside and our three helpers flitted between jobs helping each of us with what needed doing. By the time we finished the car was gleaming again inside and out, again. The lack of carpet was proven a good thing yet again. 

Sunday 15/09

We started packing today which proved more difficult than we expected. We only have two bags suitable for putting under a plane and they are full of Angela's and Nicholas' clothes. We played Tetris moving what we don't need into every conceivable space and squooshed the girls clothes in where they will fit. Packup tomorrow will be difficult with things that need to be kept out and packed for easy access when we get home. 

Tumbling Waters do a roast dinner each Sunday and we booked in for dinner for the five of us. For a small cafe they certainly did a good roast and us being short of a campfire and oven we have no way to produce a roast. The girls had been missing having a roast and this really filled that void.