Aug 2008

Had a catch up day today. Relaxed on this magical property. John was due back tonight so we organised a nice dinner for him on his return. Had a nice few drinks on the balcony.

Today was the first real day that felt like the start of the build up. It was really windy in the morning and then turned quite humid in the evening. There was a lot of cloud around.

At night the crickets and frogs came out. Unfortunately the Cane Toads were also out. They have just arrived for the start of the season. They are still quite small. I’ve heard stories that locals go out for a walk with a golf club and just putt them into oblivion. Doesn’t sound very nice, but they look absolutely horrible – even small!

Took a drive around town and found the lovely facilities that the residents fundraised till the cows came home to put in. They built a great sporting facilities with fully fenced basketball/tennis courts, fully covered sports ground, cricket pitch and full toilet and shower blocks. These were now available to the public to use as a caravan park for a donation till they choose a site for a caravan park site in town and build it.

Met a nice couple of farmers from SA who were staying there and really enjoying having the place to themselves. He is turning 75 on Monday so they were planning to spend some time there fishing and relaxing and enjoying the warm weather.

Dropped in at Darwin Dam on the way back.

We then headed back to look after the girls back at Katherine. They were a hoot. They were really happy to see us. I think they slept the night under the van.

Today we had an early start. After a late night fire from the bush behind our van was put out by the fire brigade around midnight, we took a walk down the cliff top path to the beach. Thinking it was a short stroll around a few rocks to the Cullen Bay Marina, we started climbing. After passing a lady sleeping in the rocks, she informed us she was waiting for the tide to go out before she ventured into Cullen Bay and off the rocks. After about 15 minutes of hiking through the rocks, we made it out the other end. Midget had a great time twisting and twirling through the rocks and the smells. We had a nice and windy breakfast down in the marina before returning to the van.

We were keen to re-visit the Botanical Gardens. They have a lovely range of beautiful gardens. Set up mainly by George Brown I think his name was, who decided to Green Darwin and turn it into the tropical place that it now is. I guess its somewhat like Broome, not tropical in the sense of the plantings that you see around the town, but tropical in terms of humidity etc. George setup the water features and got retic in, and from what I can gather, the Botanical Gardens was the nursery for the gardens of Darwin till a commercial nursery was actually set up. The frangipani’s at Barnett House were from the Botanical Gardens. There is also a new cycad garden, and soon to be opened biodynamic garden. It was still being mulched and watered in when we were there. Would like to see that when its up and running. There was also a great ginger garden.

The lovely gardener we bumped into was happy to see Midget running around having a great time chasing the chooks (native not commercial) she saw running around the bushes. She even had a pocket full of dog biscuits to encourage those who need no encouragement at all! How lovely!

We then decided to head to a place called Mandorah. For those of you living in Mandurah, you might have encountered some people over east who call Mandurah, Mandorah when pronouncing it. I am all the more totally surprised, given that the population is less than 100!

Its an interesting little spot. Just 15 minutes by ferry from Darwin, but 130kms drive from Darwin! Since the opening of the ferry service, the place has taken off. People are now commuting. Given the sad state that many of the houses are in – or should I say illegal state, I’m surprised that they’re asking $1.4m for a 5 acre ocean front block with a nice 3x2 house on it!

The creek about 1km from the spot we stopped at for the night. Midget had a great stick chasing and swim time followed by a rest in the carpark while we organised dinner. Another lady turned up about an hour later with her dog. She didn’t stay long and came back to say her dog was followed by a croc. He got out just in time. Amazing stuff. So you cant swim in Mandorah but they have a nice outlook. Looks like a few sailing boats hang out this way too.

We topped up our DVD collection in Darwin and now have Series 2, 3 and 6 of the Soprano’s that we’re watching. I have to say its nice having a TV to catch up on bits of news of the visual kind from time to time, but the DVDs are great! Up here, you have to wait a day to get the Australian so its out of date before you even get it. Interesting stuff!

PS Sorry mucked up our last day in Darwin. If you'd like to go back and re-read, we've corrected our missing items and added pics.

Today took a walk down into the Cullen Bay Marina for breakfast. It was really windy but nice. On return, the National Trust property was open so we decided to venture in. We were amazed at these rather plain, but interesting houses on the outside were just so practical and innovative for tropical climates.

Built in 1938, they were probably quite “out there” by our city standards. They were built for the “top brass” and higher echelons of government officials, but were just so practical. The lovely volunteer who we spoke to said that cyclone Tracey put an end to the two storey tropical house. They were then replaced by single storey houses that then required air conditioning and didn’t have the same ventilation.

These homes were vastly superior. The only problem with the cyclone was the fact the roofs weren’t secured properly. This caused most of the damage with all the flying debris destroying other, buildings etc.

The particular house we were viewing was damaged during the bombing during WWII and lost its roof during cyclone Tracey, but otherwise was still intact. The downstairs area was built with steel frame and concrete surrounds with concrete floors and was in-filled with asbestos shutters from floor to ceiling with some windows and doors around. This allowed for fabulous ventilation from all directions. At the rear was the kitchen and a toilet. Basically the living room was on the ground floor. Upstairs was the beautiful Cyprus pine floors throughout with a central corridor with two bedrooms on either side and the front verandah. The bedrooms both opened up to the balcony area and again the same asbestos louvers were all around upstairs. There was a small bathroom with the same louvers to the rear with concrete shower base and asbestos sheeting to shower and bath. It was so simple, practical and just so comfortable inside. It also had huge 10 foot ceilings on both floors with ceiling fans installed in the 50s making it even more practical. Its sad Darwin doesn’t have many of these houses left. I do have to say that people with money are building houses along these lines today with louvers and on quite high stilts throughout the surrounding inner city areas. Coupled with the huge plantings of large shady trees, these homes don’t need air conditioning, even in the “build up”.

Next we moved on to the WWII Oil Storage Tunnels built under Darwin’s city centre. When the oil storage area of Darwin Harbour was bombed in 1940, the Government decided to construct 9 underground oil storage tunnels to save this happening again. They were hand dug through the rock beneath Parliament House. Several tonnes of concrete were mixed and carried in by hand and lined the holes, and this was further lined in steel to seal the fuels from escaping. It cost an exorbitant sum of money to build and was never actually commissioned. They currently have two tunnels open to the pubic and the rest are still sealed off. All the information pertaining to the war and these tunnels are still protected by the secrecy act, and to this date they don’t know why they were just sealed off and left. It was suggested that it was embarrassing to the Government of the day to admit to the waste of money, but we wont know for a bit longer.

It was interesting to see the many photos that lined the wall of the soldiers during their rest time in Darwin, along with other local destinations at the time being photographed with sand bags and the like protecting them from further damage.

To top off this perfect day we decided to take in a harbour dinner cruise. We boarded a lovely old sailing ketch called the Albert Noble, and motored off into the sunset for a 4 course dinner.

After partaking of 2 bottles of champagne and prawns, oysters, and barramundi it was finished off with a hot chocolate dip with marshmallows and fruit to dip. Oh what a lovely finale for our last night in Darwin.

Didn’t get a lot of sleep with drug dealers etc open for business on a busy Saturday night. We could also hear the music from two Darwin Festival events during the night as the wind moved directions.

Got up early and headed down to the Nightcliff Markets. A few of the cheaper end of the market stalls from Mindel Beach had come to this poorer part of town to trade. They were joined by the usual sad array of stall holders selling bongs and assorted tools of trade, and secondhand books etc. This was not an affluent part of town, but did have a nice café in the centre with a large gazebo and tall shady trees abound. Shame they were so busy as the service was abysmal. We decided to tour the east side of the Darwin coastline. It got more and more run down, with less and less reticulated parks and gardens as we progressed further and further away from Darwin CBD. Once we’d crossed Rappid Creek, we hit Charles Darwin University’s main campus. It was quite run down and unkept. Not quite what I’d expect of a one university territory, but there you go. They do have lots of outstation campus’ around the territory. We did pass one in Katherine and another half way between Katherine and Darwin. They probably have one in Alice too.

We decided to partake in part of the Darwin Festival calendar and enjoyed part of the film festival at the Deckchair Cinema outdoors on the Darwin foreshore. It was really fun. We saw Not Quite Hollywood. It was a fabulous movie/doco about the Australian Film Industry in the 70s and 80s. It was hilarious at all the stuff that was made that just never made it to the screen. Something to do with the 150% tax deduction offered for many years. When it was cut back to 110% in the 80s the industry tightened up. But it was a great look into the classics. Some made us cry with laughter with all the tits and ass and the shoot-em-up car crashes shown. There were great interviews with Tarantino who is bordering on obsessed with 70s and 80s films of Australia. He was just about wetting himself talking about all his favourite films. They also had Graeme Blundell in the audience who gave a speech. Well, actually it was more a plug for his new book, and we followed the movie with Alvin Purple which he stared in in the 70s. If anyone read last weekends’ Weekend Australian Magazine, there was story in there about the movie and the times in general around the making of the film. It was a great night.

The cinema is also a local legend in itself. Not quite as fun as the Broome outdoor cinema with the planes flying over as you’re watching the movie, but the ocean side location is fabulous. They also team up with a local Indian group to provide great home cooked meals cheap, and its also licensed so you can enjoy a beve or two… We also had to laugh at the pre-show slideshow. It included info about “turn your mobiles off, it confuses the bats” and “we share this site with possums so if you don’t want them to help themselves to your food, please keep it up off the floor during the movie”. Quite a cultural experience in itself!