Darwin

I seem to be staying up later and later to write this blog!  Everyone else is asleep, spread out with no sheets over them, trying to ignore the yellow lights from the toilet block next door, and the traffic going past on the road outside.  Urban living has its price.

It’s lovely and hot up here in Darwin, but it means you don’t really feel like cooking dinner until the sun is gone and the day is cooling off a bit.  That means we are eating later, then the children are getting to bed later and later, so hence, here I am, sitting in peace and quiet, but perhaps a little late.  Cooper particularly is getting grumpy and tired.  If we are out and about in the afternoon, he will sleep in the car.  But once we stop he tries to keep up with the big kids, and can sort of fall apart, or get very silly, in the evening.  I think we need earlier dinner and some afternoon naps.

This morning we worshipped at the Darwin Baptist Church with the family we know here.  The singing was great, and the message was about Paul and lessons taken from his life – he was brave, even though he was beaten etc – and continued to preach the gospel.  We also need to be brave in telling others the good news. 

Cooper wiggled a lot, then started to throw paper aeroplanes, then spoke loudly.  I took him to the back of the church and drew all sorts of animals that we’d seen over the past two weeks.  That kept him happy.

After church we drove a little further into Darwin (nothing seems very far away in Darwin – apart from that shopping centre the silly GPS sent me to yesterday!) and walked through the Darwin Botanical Gardens.  They were lovely, with vegetable gardens, a lake with fountains, and a really cool tree house built around an old fig tree.

We tried to walk to the museum, but Grant ended up going back for the car.  It was a hot old day.  We passed the cemetery, though, and the most interesting thing we noticed was the masses of mango trees full of almost ready mangoes!  We thought fondly of our mango tree back home, and wondered if it would have any mangoes on it when we got back…probably not.  There was also a grave with what looked like a marble dog house on it.  Was a bit confused by that one.

Joseph and Dominic were very keen to start their own vegetable patch after we’ve finished our trip.  I’m not sure what triggered that off, but I’d love to give it a go.  I’ve tried vegetable gardens a few times, with very little success.  Bugs, possums, drought, weeds….forgetfulness.

The Darwin museum was very small.  That was great.  There was enough to look at and wonder over, but it was easy to get around in an hour.  I followed Cooper from room to room, keeping him away from Dinosaur bones, old aboriginal artwork, models of pre and post cyclone Tracey displays.  He particularly liked the shell displays, and the cases of stuffed birds and butterflies.  He was very cute running around naming the fish and birds and spides at the top of his voice.

There was a large saltwater crocodile on display that had attacked several boats before they captured him.  In the process of getting him into the boat, he drowned.  His name was Sweet Heart.  iHisHStuffed crocs aren’t that scary looking.  Not sure why.

There was a 2.5m Grouper (fish) and several enormous stingrays in one display.  One room in the cyclone Tracey display was a small, pitch black cubicle with the soundtrack of the cyclone as recorded by someone during the wind and rain, playing over and over again.  None of us lasted very long in that room.  The wind has a very eerie and spooky sound to it.

There was a dugout canoe in the maritime display that, during a fishing outing off a small island 180 km north of Darwin, was blown off course by big winds and drifted 10 days before being rescued by vessels off the Australia coast.  On board were 10 people; 2 women, 4 men and 4 children, including a nine month old baby.  They survived with dried fish and corn and rainwater.  It was a very small boat!

After chasing Cooper around the museum for an hour I was ready to go, so we headed a short way away to the Darwin Military Museum.  Grant, Joseph, Dominic and Oskar went in for a look at the displays on the bombing of Darwin during the second World War.  I stayed outside and rested!  Apparently there were 64 attacks, and about 250 people died in Darwin during this time!  I didn’t know it had happened at all.  There were big cement foundations for anti aircraft guns around the edge of the coast, but after the war the Government sold them to the highest bidder – Japan – for scrap metal. Figure that one out!

Back at our van we had Stuart and Maryanne over for dinner and a chat – still chasing Cooper all over the place.  Little terror! In a nice way, of course.

Our neighbours here at the van park are from Mackay in Queensland.  They have been travelling for three weeks and have been to Uluru, Broome, Bungle Bungles and are now on their way home slowly.  In three weeks they have had to get three new tyres for their camper trailer.  Once they had to wait on a dry and dusty road for hours while someone came to fix their tyre.  Hopefully we won’t have to do that on the long, dusty road to Broome.

One thing I have seen in the last few weeks that I’ve never seen before is mosquito domes.  They are little dome tents, for one or two people, just made out of mosquito netting.  I saw little colonies of them in Kakadu where it was so hot and dry, there was no need for any type of roof, just protection from the bities.  At night they are almost invisible, and in the morning when it is light, there are these people asleep!  At Katherine Gorge we saw the ultimate in minimalist camping.  This family had stretched out a tarpaulin on the ground and had their air mattresses spread out around on top of it, and that was it!  No mosquito nets, no tent, no roof, no tables or chairs.  That’s it!!!!  I guess it would stop teenagers sleeping in.

Vicki