Wednesday, 21 August 2013

Darwin

Wed (21/8) to Sat (24/8)

Happy Birthday Brett - 22/8/2013 - 27 today. Love you.

We left Jabiru and traveled about 250km to Darwin. We found out that Kakadu has had record high temperatures for August this week. We felt every degree!

Another photo opportunity for Mike as we were leaving Jabiru....


We chose a caravan park in Malak (not too far from town and not too near the airport runways) - over half the vans are permanents or long term. There are no tent sites and each site has a concrete slab and a concrete ensuite. I find it a bit depressing, Mike calls it quirky. Luckily we spend very little time here.

On our first afternoon and night we drove around the beach areas, spent some time at the museum, watched the sunset at the Darwin Ski Club and had dinner at the Magic Wok (Mike last ate there in 1991). We finally got to see the ocean after many weeks....



Then on Thursday we went to Mindil Markets - a must do for all tourists. It was good fun. We had yummy things to eat, I bought another sun dress (it's been so hot and I only brought one from home with me), watched another sunset and saw some live entertainment. The Canterbury Girls College (Melbourne) concert band, a fire eater/thrower and a duo of drums and didgeridoo who whipped a bunch of aboriginal kids into a frenzy of dancing, even had a fight thrown in for good measure.




Notice the clouds in the sunset. We got a big rain shower on Thursday night - very unusual for this time of year. Lots of speculation about whether the "hot dry" has now turned into the "build up to the wet" and whether or not there will be an early "wet". Very complex when there are 6 seasons up here.

Friday morning we put the car in for a service and walked into town. It's the last few days of the Darwin Festival and we saw several art exhibitions. Here's one at the old town hall.....


We also saw some free entertainment in a town park. This is synchronized swimming...


Then later in the afternoon it was African music in the Botanical Gardens....


Followed by a movie at the open air Deck Chair cinema....


We are all cultured out!!!

Saturday we drove out to a couple of beaches and put our toes in the water. The water is incredibly warm. But you can't swim because of crocodiles and sea wasps. There is something terribly fickle about nature that teases you with gloriously warm water that you can't swim in!

Then a big shop before we head out to Lichfield NP tomorrow.

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