Dear Mammy,
How are you? I am… well… I am, uh. I think the term is “gone troppo”. It’s ok, you don’t need to worry about me but I will say that if some of this letter doesn’t make any sense, there’s a reason for it.
Darwin really is a party town. To this point, on our way in, Randal our guide gave us a quick tour. It consisted of “here’s a pub, oh, there’s another pub, oh and here’s a pub that does cheap beer on a Wednesday”. Exactly.
Arriving in Darwin, after checking in to our hostel, all of us from the tour went out for dinner and drinks. It all started off in a very civilised and sedate manner but within an hour had descended into absolute mayhem. That said, nobody was ill or fighting or anything like that, no, but I did discover that I have an innate talent for dancing on tables, hopping between tables mid air and twirling on benches. Interesting transferable skills to have but you never know when such things come in useful.
I did my best to get out and see some things but to be honest, it was so hot and humid that I really felt very out of it most of the time. It’s a nice town, but I don’t think I could live there, my brain would just shrivel up and hide.
As I said, I did get to see some stuff. I did lots of walking down along the wharf, and saw the waterfront and the wave pool, and the famous Stuart Wharf. I did not try the fish and chips - in that heat even a cucumber is too much for my stomach to handle. But I hear the food there is nice.
I also went up to the museum with Jenny from the tour one of the days. It was interesting because they’d loads of Aboriginal art on display. They also had a display about Cyclone Tracey which basically obliterated Darwin in the 1970’s. It was sad to read about all the destruction and see the ‘before and after’ images. They have this small completely blacked out booth that you can go in and they play a recording of Cyclone Tracey that someone had recorded. Initially I thought that would vbe stupid and I was laughing up my sleeve but I said I’d go in and experience it anyway seeing as how I was there. Well. It scared the living beeejaysus out of me - I ran out of there so fast when it was finished. Not nice.
Ooh apart from that has to be the fact that they have Sweetheart the crocodile (obviously not still alive). This croc used to live in one of the estuaries but being a 5.2 metre male croc, he was a little uh, territorial. The only problem with this is that the sound of a boat propeller is pretty much the same as one of the crocodile aggressive grunts so he kept attacking boat propellers because he thought they were challenging him. The locals decided to move him (for everyone’s sake really) but unfortunately, when they were trying to get him out of the water he drowned. So they stuffed him and put him in the museum. He’s bloody big I tell ya, even stuffed they’re very scary beasties.
I saw some real ones too, at Crocosaurus (or something like that) Park. It was ok, but to be honest, having been at Broome croc farm, and the Wyndham croc farm, this was a little tame. They did the feeding tour as well but as usual there were about 90 million people on the tour and it was impossible to see anything. I don’t meant to be grumpy but to be honest the only thing that I thought was cool there, was the aquarium with the saw fish and the big barramundi in it. The crocs were cool, but I felt like I’d seen it all before. They’re still amazing animals, I think I’m just a bit over it.
What else… oh yes. The markets. Oh dear. I’m really just not destined to have any joy with markets. I had my heart set on going to the Mindil Beach market. All the guides and books I’d read said it was *the* highlight of Darwin, that the food is fab, there’s live music and you can watch the sun go down. Oh boy, I tell ya, I was in pseudo-hippy heaven just thinking about it. Sooo off we went (Jenny and I) on the Thursday. Disaster. It bucketed down rain and the market was closed. The previous day? Glorious sunshine. The following day? Glorious sunshine. I’m telling ya, someone upstairs is having a laugh.
Not to be put off entirely, I found out about another market, the Rapid Creek market which is on, on Fridays. So off we trundled (Jenny and I) with an enthusiasm and confidence that only a glowing Lonely Planet (new edition) review can instill. Eventually (after about a 20 minute bus journey) we got dropped off at this run down old shopping centre (about the size of the Loughboy shopping centre) which had one Asian grocery store, a hippy food shop and about 40 boarded up ex-shops. So in we went to the hippy shop where the poor lady very apologetically explained that the damn thing hadn’t been on for ages (we’re talking several months or more). Sigh.
That said, Darwin wasn’t a total wash out. I decided I needed to do something touristy. Given their very thoughtless lack of a big jolly tourist bus (they should get one, everywhere should have one) I plumped for a trip on the ‘duckasaurus’ tour instead. It’s basically like the Dublin splash tour, a bus that turns into a boat. I have to say it was actually loads of fun! We did a quick scoot around Darwin and saw some of the old building (the ones that survived the wrath of Tracey) and then off to the harbour. It was cool going into the water but I did have a mild moment of panic when I started to question the sea-worthiness of a bus. Luckily we didn’t sink. Sinking here, above anywhere else in the world is a *horrible* idea. Not only do they have the constant possibility of crocs, there are sharks and box jellyfish too. Ugh. NOT nice. Because of the jellyfish situation though, the authorities had closed off Mindil Beach so our guide decided to drive out of the water, hare down the middle of Mindil beach and splash back into the wather. Why? In her words “because we can”. I like Darwin!
So that was it really. From Darwin I flew down to Alice Springs and booked on a ‘rock’ tour. I’m off to Uluru, Kata Tjuta and Kings Canyon in a couple of days. First a few days to relax in Alice Springs!
I’ll write and tell you all about Alice!
Hope all is well back home - how are the Halloween preparations going? I’m going to have to bring Halloween to Australia!
Love ya xx
Your Daughter
(the one who ran away)
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