Aug 2008

Had a nice relaxing day having breakfast at a Fannie Bay café before heading off to Parap Markets (next suburb away). It was a very compact market consisting of many of the same stalls as the Mindel Beach Markets, but was still fun. With the additions of a few flower stands and a few fruit & veg.

Next we headed back to the MAGNT to have a second look at the fabulous artwork, as well as the rest of the museum. They have a fabulous cyclone Tracey exhibition complete with a dark room with simulated sounds of what people heard as the sheets of tin ripped through houses like machetes. Its quite spooky. If you’ve never seen it, its definitely a must see on a trip to Darwin. Including some fabulous footage of a reporter driving through the destruction the day after. Just the language used, the scenery of absolute devastation, and the black and white footage is really interesting. It shows how long ago it happened.

Upon seeing passes issued by the Government allowing people to “enter” Darwin, I remember that my uncle who was then, an electrician, actually left his family and went up to Darwin to help rebuild the city for 6 months. It was an interesting statistic that some 40% of the population that was evacuated out after the cyclone, never returned.

I’m embarrassed to say that we had a most enjoyable and cheap dinner at the Starcity Casino. Not being one for smoke filled dens of iniquity, we found a nice table outside around the pool overlooking the sunset. We arrived just in time to watch the sunset.

We found a nice quiet place atop of the new suburb of Cullen Bay to spend the night. Over the road are the last 4 remaining old houses of the area saved by a few dedicated individuals from demolition in the 80s. They are now the headquarters of the National Trust NT. One is open to the pubic. Pictures below are of Cullen Bay.

Had a walk around the city again. The camera has finally arrived, so we’re back in the land of snappy happy tourists. Finally made it to the Aboriginal Art Exhibition at the Exhibition Centre. I have to say that Darwin’s Exhibition Centre is 10 times better than our shocker in Perth!

MiMi Gallery (Jayne's baby)

We tried to buy a mermaid on the wall, but they'd been sold. They have amazing hand made crafts - located north of Kakadu. Just beautiful quality handicrafts.

We were incredibly impressed at the quality of art work, and textiles offered by all the communities in NT, and WA on offer. What a great concept. Enabling Aboriginal, TI and Tiwi organisations to showcase their work to tourists and locals alike without having to split their commissions with the galleries. The presentation was fabulous, and the quality of the works just amazing! We ended up purchasing our first traditional Aboriginal art work. The stalls shut early to enable everyone to get back to get ready for the big awards that night.

Located in the stunning grounds of the Museum and Art Gallery of NT (MAGNT), the 25th Telstra Art Awards was a big deal in town. The who’s who of NT art, as well as the patron, Mr Myer’s, was there to welcome and make speeches. With a first prize of $40,000 and prizes for other categories such as bark painting, paper medium and other, there was stiff competition. There were over 1000 applications for the awards, and the 120 or so works displayed occupied two half floors of the Gallery! It was a really impressive line up of talent and work. Most were for sale from $250 - $120,000!

We were entertained by fabulous dancers, a stunning sunset, followed by the announcement of the winners and then we were invited to view the accepted entries. Given they could only 300 people at a time, there was quite a que to gain entry by the time we got there.

What a fabulous night!

Afterwards we walked back to the car to find the Darwin Festival well underway. We visited the venue and had a late nite snack from the lovely eateries setup for the event...

Left early to head up to Darwin, some 352kms from Katherine. Had a couple of stops along the way and arrived early afternoon. Found out way round quite well considering we haven’t been here in 12 or 13 years! I must say it hasn’t changed that much, except for the millions of high-rise apartment buildings popping up around the outskirts of the CBD.

Discovered that we’d arrived on the first day of the Darwin Arts Festival. Much like the Festival of Perth. So many local, interstate and overseas acts. Its hard to decide what to see…

Found a nice place to camp just off East Point in Fannie Bay. Very quiet and away from the live concerts going on around the city for the Darwin Festival.

32o

Had a nice day pottering around catching up with emails and blogs. Then wandered into town to have a look around. We were surprised how cheap the petrol was at $1.86/L for diesel. With fuel discounts getting it for $1.76/L, making it cheaper fuel than when we left home!

Also surprised to find a Saddlery shop right in the main drag of Kathering. I mentioned this later to Jayne who assured me this was the Cowboy Capital of Australia! Kerry J, you better get your skates on and get over here!

Returned home to the biggest spare ribs I’ve ever seen! If they keep treading us like this, they’ll never get rid of us! But we earned our keep later that night, with Steve drilling holes in nuts for Irene and Wendy’s necklaces, so they could paint them and feed them on a lovely steel strand with nice metal clasp for their lovely handmade necklaces they’re making. Jayne also taught them how to make lino prints. They decided to make some quilting squares, as they appear to be a popular souvenir purchase by holiday makers. Jayne has shown them how to tie dye nice colours into fabric and then lino print lovely designs that the ladies came up with of stingrays, bush bananas, and many others. They came out fabulous. My job was to wrap them in cellophane and attach the labels ready for selling. I must say they’ve done such a great job. Jayne is working with them to help them design, construct and price goods to sell. So they can be self sufficient as a business enterprise. They obviously enjoy the work, as the two ladies are both diabetics and not well, but they still sat cross legged on the timber balcony on the hard wood floors from 10am through to 11pm with minimal breaks (and a short shopping trip into Katherine). I was so tired that I turned in before them!

If you know anyone who is interested in a hand painted nut and bead necklace they range in price of $49 - $74 depending on length, and the quilting squares are $33 a pair. Let me know and I can put you in touch with Jayne and she can email you some pictures.

Midget is also dog tired. She has been rounded up by Jayne’s dog, Tango, a Kelpie who doesn’t work. So she made it her job to keep Midget suitably round up during her visit. In fact, when we went to go into Katherine, Midget was so happy to stay with the other dogs, Tango and Sam (both Kelpies) but Sam is almost blind but still such a great dog, that she had to be called about 10 times to get into the van to go! I think she see’s herself as a farm dog now. Each time finding it harder and harder to leave!

After overnighting at a stop along the way, we arrived at Jayne & John’s place (Leanne’s sisters). They live 30kms out of Katherine on a magnificent 400 acre property with a stunning corrugated iron house with huge outdoor balcony enormous 100m2 living room with huge ceilings. Being the tropical climate that it is, they leave their sliding concertina windows permanently open. They built the house themselves and its just idealic for the climate.

Midget had a ball discovering the 40 or so resident wallabies visiting at dusk for feeding on the lush green grass around the house. The ran and ran and ran (again) and was missing for a white chasing the wallabies, that she didn’t even notice that she took off right underneath the middle of one of the three horses on the property in the chase!

Jane cooked us a lovely curry for dinner and we had a great chat about life and the universe. Jayne also had two ladies from one of the communities that she is helping set up art enterprises with. Wendy and Irene. They were both having a lovely time staying at Jayne’s getting ready to head up to Darwin for the exhibition.