Day 152 - Monday 29 May - Keeping ourselves entertained

Day 152

Monday

29 May 2017

Darwin

And so the week begins again. I am starting to get cabin fever, not with the van, but with staying in the one place, 12 days it will be by the time we hit the road again.

We started our day with a lay in and reading our books before lazily crawling out of bed and having breakfast. We pottered around before going to Chemist Warehouse for some supplies and when we returned we put the bike on the trailer ready for our departure. As we did so a nosey neighbour came by for a chat. He needed to put on more clothes. I am not sure how his bathers were being held up and nor do I want to know.

I then made my way to the pool to sit on a sun lounger and use the free and super slow internet. Paul joined me shortly after he had changed his book at the exchange. I didn’t do as much as I could and a fair bit was sorted via tethering to my phone internet. I figure I am paying for 9gb of data a month and as it runs out in 2 days I should be using it as well.

We returned to the van just after 11am, gathered our things and took ourselves off to the East Point Reserve that is situated along Fannie Bay. We parked at the first park and got out to walk along the footpath and increase our step count.  It was lovely wandering along as it wasn’t too hot and there was quite a pleasant breeze. We walked as far as the Alexander Lake, being mooned by a man in a g string and then a girl who was insisting on bending over to look at something fascinating on the beach. We couldn’t help but laugh. 

I received a call from the air con mob, CTM, confirming the part had arrived and would be installed tomorrow arvo, thank goodness and Paul heard from Darryl, looks like we wouldn’t be catching up as planned.

Once we had returned to the car, we drove further along the road to the East Point. At this spot there is a military museum as well as a large grassed oval with the remnants of gun emplacements from WWII. We did a wander around the park and walked up the large, round, concrete structure where a large gun had once been in place. 

We then drove around to a park to take in the views over Fannie Bay. I found a beautiful red-faced finch to take photos of and then noticed so many dragonflies. They had shimmery bronze and gold striped wings that were just dazzling in the sun.  I later found out they are tiger wing or graphic flutterer. 

From this location we also had a good view of an American Navy vessel floating in the waters, as well as the smoke billowing out from fires on the horizon and a view of Darwin City.

We returned to the car and headed home, as Paul was in need of lunch. I made up our sandwiches and then we proceeded to flake out for the afternoon, reading and watching DVDs.

At 3.30pm we wandered back to the pool ready to cool off. It was the first time that the pool was quite busy, but we managed to find ourselves a space and cool down before making it back to the van.

I sat outside and read my book, enjoying the peace. Paul started off inside but joined me after a while. It was a little hard to concentrate on the reading with our neighbours gathered nearby having four o’clock drinks and nibbles.

As the bugs began to appear, we retreated inside, making dinner before deciding to get our steps up further by driving in to town, parking at the multi-storey and then walking into the city.

It was much quieter by the waterfront than it was on Saturday night and the town itself wasn’t much different. It wasn’t until we reached Mitchell Street (Pub St) that there was more action. As we passed Monsoon’s we were given free drink cards. We kept walking but inspected what we were given and decided we would do a lap of the block and return for our free drink.

We made our way down Smith Street and then rounded back to Monsoon’s, joining the large number of American Sailors frequenting the bar also. We ordered our free drinks then sat near the front. I heard a stat on the radio today about the level of smokers in the NT, 23%, this is double the national average and you could certainly see it on show here. I can’t stand it, It makes me physically ill being around it. It is such a despicable habit.

When our glasses were empty, we made our way back to the car, had a fight with the parking meter ticket reader that did not want to read our ticket at first and then made our way back. Once back it was time to lay on the bed in front of the fan and try and get cool as we read before lights out. 

Day 151 - Sunday 28 May - 5 months on the road.

Day 151

Sunday

28 May 2017 – 5 months on the road today!

Darwin

Finally a morning with no alarms, though I was still awake at 7.15am and needing the loo, however I returned to bed to read my book until 9am, bliss.

We reluctantly removed ourselves from bed and ate breakfast before I gathered up all my technology and hiked it to the pool to load things on. Paul stayed at the van to rearranging the packing of some of the items in the car and box.

I shared the pool area with two others also getting their technology fix. I thought I was in a spot that would allow things to happen a lot quicker, but as it turns out the internet is just plain slow.

Paul joined me by the pool about an hour later, happy to read as I continued to plod along. We had a quick splash around in the pool before returning to the van, dumping our gear and going for a walk.

We had seen there was a surf brand sale on at the showgrounds next door so we did a wander through the rack of clothing. Nothing really jumped out at me and not at the prices that they still were, however Paul picked up a couple of things.

We then crossed the road to the aviation museum. I wasn’t interested in going inside, even though they advertise they have one of only two B52’s outside of America. We just did the walk around the outside yard, the plane graveyard. Nothing here was going anywhere anytime soon.

Getting hungry, we walked back to the park. It wasn’t as hot today as it has been but it was still a warm walk back. I made up our lunch and we proceeded to spend the next couple of hours sitting in the van, me watching a dvd and Paul still reading.

At 4pm we tidied ourselves up and drove in to town, parking at Mindil Beach and walking to the Skycity Casino. We made our way through the rooms full of pokies with flashing lights and noise and out to the Sandbar. We ordered a drink and then sat out on the lawn as the DJ played his set. 

We watched the small sailing boats bob about on the water, not going far as the wind had dropped away completely and the cloud cover had come in, it would be a warm one tonight.

We finished our drink and then went for a walk along the path following the beach and up into the markets. It was just as busy as last week, bustling with tourists and locals. We did the walk, checking out the stalls and seeing what was on offer for food before making our choice and sitting near the performance arena to eat and watch the man from Outback Experience with his many working dogs and a horse. One of the pups was new to the routine and kept running off. At one stage she ran to me, so I quickly grabbed her by the collar until one of the handlers came to collect her. 

We finished our dinner and then wandered out to the beach to check out the sunset. There was a little pink colouring, but nothing like last weekend, so we cut our time short and returned to the car and then home. 

It didn’t take long for us to jump into our bathers and head to the pool for a swim, cooling down as well as getting the steps up, working off the big dinner. 

Once back at the van we tag teamed having showers and then it was time for bed. 

Day 150 - Saturday 27 May - Cruising Corroboree Billabong

Day 150

Saturday

27 May 2017

Darwin - Corroboree Billabong

Ok, I am officially over alarms! Today we had to be up early as we were heading out to Corroboree Billabong in the Mary River National Park for a tour with Wetland Cruises.

We left at 8am following the Stuart and then Arnhem Highways through the town of Humpty Doo, dodging the hundreds of birds of prey that were out on the roads, along with the odd wallaby and snake. It was like the video game Frogger.

We made good time, making it to the boat ramp just after 9.15am. We found the spot our boat would be launching from and proceeded to hang out at the undercover jetty. We watched the water alive with archer fish and eel tail cat fish. Paul couldn’t resist for long and went back to the car to collect his rod and flick a line.  

 I happily wandered the edge of the platform looking for larger things moving around us, though nothing stirred. This area of Australia has the largest concentration of crocs of anywhere in the world, so we were bound to see one eventually. We were told on the tour that this particular billabong has 7 crocs per 1 square kilometre while Shady Camp has 20 for the same space.

Paul finished up catching two cat fish, before packing his gear away and we began our tour of the Wetlands with Tony, our guide, at 10am. There were plenty of other people out on the water, mostly fishermen in tinnies, but also houseboats and BBQ boats.

Our aim today was to check out the wildlife. There are many species of bird that call this billabong home and it didn’t take long for them to show themselves. We were all spotters, pointing the fellow traveller in the direction of what we were seeing. Plenty of Nankeen Night Heron juveniles made an appearance first, followed by the adults. White belly sea eagles flew above, along with whistling kites.

Nankeen Night Heron juvenile

and the adult version

Egret

A sea-eagle nest high in the trees was spotted and you could just make out the shape of a white head peeking out over the edge. Meanwhile down on the large lotus leaves, a male Jakana was watching over his clutch of eggs. We were able to get in really close for decent photos.

Forest Kingfisher

We moved through the water system as far as we could before it became clogged with an invasive weed and we were forced to turn back. Tony pulled into the bank at one point to raid a green ant nest encouraging everyone to lick the bum of an ant, we passed, but others said it had a citrus flavouring and apparently there are breweries making beer with them!

 We also got up close to the Lotus plant. We were shown how there are factories in Burma creating thread from the sap of the plant. The huge leaves are also repellent, so no dust or water seeps in making them ideal for water carriers and as rain hats.

You can just make out the threads between this broken stem

We returned, spotting a forest kingfisher with bright blue wings and white belly, before making a right and heading out along a different arm. We stopped at a small cut out where water lilies carpeted the billabong with white and mauve flowers. In the background we could just make out the nest of a jabiru, high in a distant tree. This was a postcard moment.

The Jabiru is in the tallest branch of the middle tree.

We continued along this waterway, now spotting for crocs and we found them, mostly sunning on the banks. There was a large salty that we turned around for and moved in closer. We scared it and it leapt into the water and submerged itself, leaving a trail of bubbles as it cruised otherwise undetected, that was an unnerving moment.  

This was the big croc we scared

Our tour was for an hour and a half, but Tony was so excited to get out amongst it that we were still bobbing about well after 11.30am. We did eventually make our way back towards the jetty, stopping to take in the large gathering of bird life, egrets, heron and ibis.

We were then graced with a flyby of a pair of jabiru. They landed near a bank and we were able to manoeuvre the boat in close enough to get some decent photos. The pair was there collecting grasses for their nest, but didn’t hang around long. I tried to get photos of them taking off, but the camera was a bit slow with focusing, which I cursed!

We finally made it back to the jetty for 12.10pm, we should have been back at 11.30am, so we certainly got our money’s worth, at $55 a head it was a great morning out. Our only issue with getting back so late, was that we had a lunch booking for 12.15pm at the Purple Mango and Brewery in Marrakai, about 20min away. So it was a very quick drive to get there fashionably late.

We pulled into the car park at 12.30pm, pretty good time travel I thought. Paul made it straight into the brewery, while I headed for the café, to let them know we were here and apologise for being late. I was shown to the table and proceeded to wait for Paul, but he was obviously taking his time, so I had to take the pizza menu to him instead and come back and order our antipasto pizza and a chilli prawn.  In the meantime I ordered a mango smoothie. It came out like a thick yogurt and it was delicious.

Paul eventually joined me, bummed that he had had to pay for his tasting and our pizzas arrived shortly after. They were also yummy.

We finished up at 1.40pm, returned to the car and made the journey back to the van, both tired and in need of a rest and a cool down in the pool and that is exactly what we did. I loaded the photos, Paul wrote his review and then we were off to the pool to cool down. It was nice to stop for a bit.

We returned to the van, Paul reading and I continued with the photos before he went off for a shower. I made up dinner, a light one after a heavy lunch and limited walking.  Then we made our way into the Darwin Waterfront where the Harmony Soiree was taking place.

We found a place to park in the multi-storey and then wandered out amongst the crowds. There were tents set up for the various nationalities that chose to be represented and lots of colourful costumes and food. We wandered around the various stalls checking things out and then stopped to watch some of the performances of various cultural dance, music and singing.

After seeing enough, we walked into the city and on to the local woollies to pick up some needed groceries, including more RID, as we are going through the stuff faster than you can blink and yet we are still be eaten alive.

With our two bags filled, we returned to the car and then stopped in at The Precinct for a drink. It also allowed us to watch the Dockers being hammered and a close Richmond game.

After our drink, we returned to the car and then returned home, too late for an evening swim, so instead we crawled in to bed, read for a bit and then called it a night.