Last stop: Darwin

On leaving Kakadu, we travelled across to Litchfield National Park then, we headed to Darwin, arriving late afternoon. When I've been away before, no matter how much I loved it and how interesting, exciting, fun, a trip had been, by the end I always looked forward to home. Not this time. It was a great disappointment to see the tin and tile roofs of suburbia loom into view on the outskirts of Darwin.

That said, Darwin itself was not a disappointment at all. Originally I'd planned an extra day there but Qantas messed about with my flights. I saw enough to hope to get back there again and see it properly. Then again – reservation staff and I don't seem to hit it off in the Northern Territory. This time, the hotel couldn't find the booking for my second night there.

On the outskirts of Darwin we stopped at the Australian Aviation Heritage Centre which is more or less a giant hangar filled with old planes and associated memorabilia. My Aunty Hazel worked at Essendon Aerodrome during World War II, helping build aircraft, and she stayed on there until her retirement many years later, so I have that background interest. She started with ANA (Australian National Airways) which had morphed into Ansett by the time she stopped work. The largest exhibit is a B52 bomber. It was amusing to hear someone ask where it was when he walked into the hangar: it was so big he couldn't see it!

Only appropriate to put this here,
an exhibit at the Aviation Centre,
seeing as a similar plane has been the logo of this blog.

Then it was on into the city centre where our hotel was, overlooking the water. People, including me, pretty much flaked on arrival, taking time to luxuriate in a hot shower and put on fresh clothes before going down to drinks and our last dinner together.

Next morning it was an early start again. We had a morning tour of the city at the end of which some people were dropped off at the airport and various other places of accommodation for those staying on at cheaper hotel rates. I should have done that too for my extra night. I didn't realise how easy it was. However .....

The city tour fitted in more than I expected. Most of it was drive-by or drive-through, of course. But we got out near the Supreme Court, above the WWII oil storage tunnels and learned a bit of history, at East Point to admire the (smoky!) views, and spent a decent amount of time at the art gallery. The temporary exhibition at the gallery was the 2012 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art awards. There was some fabulous work there – and as with any exhibition some that you'd struggle to be polite about. But one piece reduced me to tears; “I bin learn” by Deann Grant – 20 old-fashioned school slates with racist, patronising, negative, etc, etc things she had learned over the years. I voted for it in the People's Choice Award (doubt it will win) and suggested it be put on a postcard and delivered to every mail box in Australia (doubt they'll do that either). The extensive Cyclone Tracy exhibit was also impressive, particularly the room you went into to hear how it sounded at the time. There was, understandably, a warning on the door that some people might find it upsetting.

Back at the hotel, that left me with one afternoon before returning to Melbourne on a 7.00am flight the next day. And what a terrific afternoon it was! I was picked up at the hotel by Dianne, a library technician from Humpty Doo, and driven via the scenic route out to the hospital where health library colleague Gill was, luckily for me, at work that afternoon. We had afternoon tea and talked shop in a pretty impressive library set-up, even if they are short-staffed like many health libraries. Then Dianne drove me back to the hotel via the sunset market at Mindil Beach. That too was fun and I picked up some reasonably healthy(!) food for tea. Seeing the sun set at the sunset market was an appropriate almost-last sight after the most amazing three weeks I think I've ever spent.

Sunset at Mindil Beach
More Darwin photos here

Accommodation and the unmentionable

The proper accommodation, i.e. in a building with a proper bed and your own shower and toilet, was nicely spaced throughout the trip. Best of all, I loved sleeping under the stars. I coped with the shower blocks, was glad there weren't too many behind-a-bush toilet stops. But along with most others, I was always counting down to the plumbing of real civilisation. It varied from the luxury of Cable Beach Club, to the most expensive but nothing out of the ordinary hotel in Darwin, to a couple of better than average motels, to a permanent “tent” at Emma Gorge.

Wee small hours - full moon
at Drysdale River Station

"Tent" at Emma Gorge resort -
complete with en suite bathroom!

The stars are so shiny and numerous and the full moon was so bright. We miss these things in our cities filled with light pollution. I put up a tent when we were staying somewhere for two nights, as much as anything because it seemed odd to leave my belongings simply stacked in a pile when we went off for the day. It was the thought of it looking odd, security was unchanged. I finished up sleeping in the tent for three nights. One night there was a lot of dew and my sleeping bag got wet. It dried quickly the following day but I didn't want to be rolling up a wet bag after the night after that. Then we hit the big smoke of Kununurra. What a shock to the system! That camp-ground was very much high-density living after the isolation across the Gibb River Road. No room to put a tent up and have outside space for a stretcher.

I did have one bush shower – in a canvas cubicle with a hose poking in at the top. It was only put up once, for the experience I guess.

I spotted a couple with Outback Spirit backpacks arriving at the hotel in Darwin. I asked their owners what trip they were doing .... the reverse of what I'd just done. I said what a brilliant time they were in for then the man said to his wife, “I'll check in and you can talk about women's stuff.” Well, he and she meant toilets, didn't they? Were there many bush stops? A few. Were there really bushes at bush stops? A few, not always too bushy though. I was very pleased that in the gym programme I did before going away that squats featured and had to be practised often – it put me in good stead ;-)

The long drops – varied in design, pretty clean on the whole, didn't smell too bad, sometimes worse at a distance when 'the odour' drifted across to the camp-site on a breeze. Only one that made me gag and there was no reason for that – there was a resident ranger at Mitchell Falls so things should have been in tip-top order. The thunder-box over the hole in the ground when crossing the Tanami worked – although the hole could have been deeper. There was plenty of paper on board where that wasn't provided or had run out, and hand cleanser got used when there were no taps ... and in addition to a water wash when taps were available! For someone who always swore she'd never go anywhere where there wasn't a flush toilet, I did pretty damn well!!! 
If you see what I mean - photos here!