G`Day Australia

Posted On October 18, 2012

Apologies for not posting earlier but we only have WiFi once in a while and we guess that you understand that we don’t want to type the blog on an iPhone keyboard…

Quite a few things happened since we touched down in Darwin almost a month ago.

We arrived early morning at about 5 am in Darwin from Singapore and realized soon that the airport and the town are really not that big and so one hour later we were already at our accommodation which we booked again through airbnb.com (homestay). We stayed with Brook who funnily is working for a Swiss in a school about 100 km outside of Darwin and despite having had more than one hundred guests Kevin was her fist Swiss guest. The nice clean room we were staying in was a good base for the next few days After we had taken a long nap (about 8 hours) we went to the city center to have a look for our car but they us told that it’s too late in the day and we should come again the next day. As it was a Thursday there was the famous (at least by Darwin standards) Mindil Beach Market which we didn’t want to miss. Mindil Beach itself was already worth a visit as it offers a fantastic sunset (it surly made it into the top ten of the best sunsets ever). Unfortunately swimming was off-limits as we were in the Jelly fish season. The market itself was a mixture of hippies selling food, gimmicks and artists performing shows all in all a lively affair and a good start into our holidays.

The next morning we headed into the city. After a stop at the neat information center we visited the harbor area with its nice apartments and an artificial lagoon. Later on we showed up at the car shop to get our Ford Falcon However first we needed to wait as the registration of the vehicle was not changed into our name yet and so we spent some time in a nearby park reading. Once the car was registered we headed to the main shopping center to have a look at the camping gear we wanted to buy (Hazel was already afraid of Kevin’s camping plans but by the time of posting this has become an expert camper). Unfortunately the steering wheel alignment of the car was acting up and we decided to get this fixed the next day.As the next day was a Saturday we had been told that we only could get the car fixed on Monday. So be it, we thought and headed off to Howard Springs National Park a bit outside of Darwin. There we saw some fishes, turtles and had a short walk through the jungle. A first glance of Australia’s big attraction called “Nature” so to speak. Afterwards we headed to East Point Park which is a stretch of land in the suburbs of Darwin. The walkway along the beach offered impressive views and various historic WWII sides. Unknown to us Darwin was attacked by the Japanese in WWII shortly after Pearl Harbor and afterwards was an important base for the allied forces (still today quite a few old airstrips can be seen throughout the Northern Territories). More peaceful was the nice beach which was accessible due to the low tide (the water recedes a few hundred meters during low tide). We enjoyed another beautiful sunset nearby.

Later on we went shopping for camping gear which excited Kevin quite a bit. And so we were suddenly owner of a nice tent, camping cooker, pots, cutlery and various items necessary to survey the outback.