16 June 2011 - Darwin, Top End NT, Australia



sunset ay Mindil Beach



Waiting for sunset Mindil Beach



Sunset Mindil Beach

 Booked into Lee Point Caravan Park for a week to make the most of the lovely climate & relax a bit after all the travelling.  It's a big park with many, many nomads who make the  trek at this time every year & stay for 4-6 months (lucky sods).   Most book the same site for the coming year as they leave,  & are well set up for their sojourn with little gardens, vegies growing in buckets & pots.  They even run a small market every Tuesday morning in the camp with sewing crafts or jewellery made by the ladies, and caravan bits, tools etc sold by the men.  They had some lovely stuff at reasonable prices.  Apart from that they organise a 'Bocce' (petanque) tournament  over a period of weeks for anyone in the camp who is interested.  It's really great to witness all these 'seniors' enjoying themselves in later life.   Some of them have bikes, & as Lee Point Beach is only about a km away they can get a little exercise by cycling there. but  in general I think they just enjoy each other's company & the lovely warmth.   We found some walking tracks which led to the beach as well, so did that the first day, & it is a lovely long, long beach but unfortunately no-one can swim at this time of year because of the box jellyfish which invade the waters as soon as it warms up.  Very disappointing indeed.  Deciding to take a different track back from the beach we got ourselves a bit lost & although the journey TO the beach was only just over a km, the return walk eventuated into about 4kms.  We finally found a T junction & took a punt at which direction to take & luckily it ended up onto dirt road where we met a 4WD who I stopped to ask where it led.  Thankfully it ended just near the caravan park or we may have had a much longer walk home.
The next day was spent exploring Darwin city a little, getting info from the i-site & just generally getting a feel for the place.  It's not a large city & is very casual & laid back.  There are lots of parks & beach reserves with picnic areas which get very busy at weekends even though there is no swimming.
Thinking we might have more lucky on bikes than walking, we spent one morning cycling along waterfront tracks & managed to find some bush tracks as well which we always enjoy more.
Darwin has so many markets - it seems that every suburb has a market, so Sunday morning we spent visiting 3,  but although one was quite interesting, the others were mostly food.  But the food was so varied, & so international, as were all the fresh produce.  So many things I had never heard of let along eaten.  The only thing which really tempted me was a mango smoothie which was SO good.  It seems to be a regular Saturday or Sunday morning thing for the locals to visit the markets & eat up large.  There is also a very popular large market held on Thursday & Sunday evenings at Mindil Beach & it is has lots of crafts, clothes, food, entertainment etc.  One thing which took our interest was an asian man (possibly chinese) who did the most incredible paintings on site, with spray cans on shiny photographic paper which only took about 15-30 minutes to dry & they could be taken away.  They were assorted sizes & very reasonable & going like hot cakes.  The main attraction though had to be  the wonderful sunsets to be seen from the beach.  People take their own tables & chairs & relax, eat, drink & generally enjoy themselves while waiting, naturally armed with cameras.   We have never seen so many people on a beach waiting for a sunset.  Whole families including grandparents seemed to make it a gathering place.
The temperature has slowly risen each day we have been here & is now a very pleasant 29, no humidity at all which has very pleasantly surprised me in particular.  I fully expected it to be over 30 each day & very sticky.  However it appears this is the coldest June on record up here & all the locals are complaining about it being cold!  Anyway with beaches closed to us we sought out other swimming opportunities & spent a day at Berry Springs about an hour out of town.  There are three wonderful natural rock swimming holes, one with a lovely forceful cascade.  We expected them to be cold but it was a pleasant surprise to find them quite warm, especially right near the cascade.  We, with others, had a lot of fun trying to get close enough to duck under it , no easy task but  finally managed it by giving each other a push.  The roar was amazing.  We had to share the pool with fish but they mostly avoided us, but I managed to snap a few after I left the pool.  We also visited Howard Springs - could have saved ourselves the effort, as it was closed for swimming & is about to undergo a $3 million upgrade.  There were however lots of fish to see & I managed a snap of a turtle in the water.  Again we took a stroll along a small track & were followed by lots of lovely little butterflies.


Berry Springs




Casuarina Beach

 We are taking things very easy while we are here, so actually spent most of one day down on the beach stretched out reading a book in the shade.  There wouldn't have been more than 10 other people on the whole long, long beach.
Always conscious that we must not neglect our education on this trip, a visit to the Darwin Art Gallery & Museum was in order.  It was really very interesting, lots of aboriginal arts & crafts & history, & the display of Cyclone Tracey & the chaos she created extremely informative.  Museums in general seem to be much more exciting than I remember as a child.
As there is not a lot of attractions which involve long walks here in Darwin, an effort had to be made to get a little more exercise, so the bikes got  a bit of an airing & taken on a 15km bush track which ended at the beach not far from the camp.  Great fun, lots of ups & downs & only had to get out of the saddle twice where the track had been washed out.  We both much prefer this type of cycling to being on the roads.  For one thing you are so busy concentrating on what is coming up next that it never seems as far as it is.  So that is our last outing here on a beautiful 29deg day, not a bit humid & a light, warm breeze.  We shall miss the climate, but Darwin itself is not a particularly pretty place, at least not at this time of the year.  I imagine that once the wet, hot season begins there will be lots of tropical flowers & everything will be green & lush.  That would be nice to witness, but apparently once that season arrives, half of Darwin's occupants move to Melbourne, a complete reversal of the situation at present.  So tomorrow we head to the Kakadu which I have been looking forward to for a long time.  Do hope I am not disappointed but there's only one way to find out.