Nomading - Darwin Part 2 - 22 - 29 June 2021

Well our big move today was 20 minutes down the road from Lee Point Caravan Park to Robbie Robins Reserve. We probably could have stayed at Lee Point but we had booked the reserve first and because they had made such an effort to fit us in we didn't like to cancel the booking. We arrived before 10.00am and the office was closed so we rang the number on the door and left a message. We waited for a while and still didn't have a call back so firstly I tried the office again and then Robb did. One of the campers came out to help us but she couldn't find the manager either. Eventually Kylie turned up and she had been off cleaning the toilets so we appreciate that being done. We were shown to a very shady spot on the fence by the road, when I say road I mean major highway and there is a bit of traffic but it won't really worry us that much and it generally slows down at night. We always use our compass to find where the sun is going down in the afternoon and face the back of the van towards the West so that we can maximise the shade in the afternoon. We are quite near the airport and we have had a couple of F18's fly over which is very impressive, last time we were in Darwin the international air training trials were on and we would watch the F18's fly out in the morning and then back in the afternoon. Apparently Exercise Arnhem Thunder has just completed here so maybe there are still a few aircraft left over from that, the sound when they fly over is exhilarating. We are not going anywhere else today, I think we have earned a rest, although we are both getting a bit bored as the day goes on.

Our next day wasn't terribly exciting, we had hair appointments booked for a hairdresser in Parap Village. It was a pretty funny experience and I wasn't actually too confident they had actually trained as hairdressers, however, I was happy with the style of my cut but they had ignored the natural fall of my hair so that will cause me issues as it starts to grow out and we had great difficulty in trying to explain what Robb needed doing but we did eventually get there.

And then the next day we had the car booked in for a service, we wanted a 120,000kms service but we could not get a booking for this for another 5 weeks so we settled for a basic service and oil change. When this was completed we drove into Darwin to Stokes Hill Wharf to catch up with our new friend Tracey for a coffee, unfortunately the power had gone off at the wharf so we settled for a cold drink each but we had a lovely time discussing world problems. Eventually the power came back on and we ordered a coffee each, it wasn't great coffee but we don't expect much out of Victoria. As we were sitting there watching the boats being taken out of the port into the ocean we noticed the rain clouds getting darker and heavier and then the rain came, light at first then it stopped but then came on heavier, remembering we had a hole in the roof of our van over the bed we thought it was now time to take off home. We said our goodbyes to Tracey and then we drove home from here watching the rain and driving through some heavy falls but it seemed like we had been very lucky and missed all the rain at the reserve. As it was getting later in the week and we hadn't heard yet from the caravan repairers we thought it would be a good idea to book another week here to save us moving on again so I contacted the manager of the park to see if we could book again and thankfully we could because we really didn't want to move again. We are now able to plan a bit better for the weeks ahead but we are running out of things to do here, we are slowly turning into locals and I am wondering if maybe we need to buy a house here.

Today is Robb's birthday so we wanted to do something special to celebrate, we have booked a Japanese restaurant for dinner but we were looking for something to do through the day. Daniel was the first to call at 8.00am, he was dropping the girls to school so they were in the car and could wish Robb Happy Birthday too, this was a good way to start his day off. We had planned a visit to Berry Springs because we thought it would be nice to have a quick dip in the pools. We found the pools a bit hard to find so asked in the supermarket for directions and they were happy enough to help out. After this they were really easy to find and there were already a lot of people there, the car park was nearly full and when we walked down to the pools there were a lot of people floating around. We found somewhere to hang our clothes and then walked and slipped into the water. Luckily there are steps down to the water but the last couple of steps are on the rocks that a spread around these pools and they are quite slippery. It is mostly sand on the bottom with occasional rocks spread around. We found a good spot to float over the rocks and spread out to enjoy the water. There is a waterfall at the back of the pool which throws out warm water but then all of a sudden you feel a cool stream go past you but it is really very pleasant. There are tiny little fish in the water who seem to like feeding off the rough skin on your feet, it took a little bit of getting used to but after a while it was really quite pleasant until there was one that was a little bit too excited and seemed to have sharper teeth than the others. We were here for a couple of hours before driving back home.

We had a six o'clock booking at the Japanese restaurant for dinner tonight, the restaurant is in Parap Village and we have been here a few times so we didn't panic about getting there on time. Robb has his call with his mates on Friday night at 5.00pm and finished it off a bit earlier so that we could leave in time. We arrived right on 6.00pm and we were given our table. This is a teppanyaki restaurant but they also do a la carte, we prefer a la carte as we are more interested in the traditional Japanese cuisine. The restaurant was full and there were probably about 30 people round each of the two teppanyaki tables and they were having a lot of fun, the chef was quite amusing. We chose the dishes we wanted starting with edamame, tempura, prawn gyoza, sashimi. wahu beef and fried rice. We had plenty to eat with these dishes and everything was excellent, Robb chose a Japanese beer and I had a glass of brut sparkling. The chef came out at the end of the meal and had a chat to us and we thanked him for the beautiful dishes, we will probably return here before we leave.

We drove straight home from here and sat down to watch 'The Living Room' which I love and then we went onto streaming to 'Clarksons Farm' which is hilarious. I was probably a bit later into bed tonight and I am not sure what time Robb joined me but we were woken up at 4.00am with rain coming in our hole in the roof. We had a tarp up there but it didn't seem to be doing the job, the rain got heavier as time went on and here was Robb naked standing up on the bed with his head poking through the roof getting absolutely soaked trying to pull the tarp and straps we had up there down and put one of the floor mats up as we thought it would cover the area better. By this time the bed was completely soaked and there wasn't any way we could go back to bed, we put a couple of bowls on the bed to catch the few drops still coming through and decided to sit up for the remainder of the night and sort it out properly in the morning. It wasn't too funny at the time but I am sure it is one of these stories that with time will be hilarious. We made a plan for how we were going to manage the situation and we were up and dressed for the day with a coffee in hand and driving to Bunnings for the few items we needed to close off the hole. Who would have thought it would rain in Darwin in the dry season. Anyway we picked up the items we needed and then drove back to camp to take care of the repairs. By this time it was just 9.45am and we had the whole day ahead of us. We didn't want to sit around for the remainder of the day so I started doing a bit of research to see what we could do for a couple of hours. We didn't want to travel far because we thought we would have a bit of a catch up sleep in the afternoon, I saw a write up on Charles Darwin National Park where there were a few WW11 concrete bunkers that had been used for safe storage of munitions during the wartime action. We drove here and had a bit of a look around and there was also a lookout over to Darwin harbour, unfortunately the trees were all a bit high to get a good view of the harbour and I gather because this is a National Park there wasn't much chance they would cut down the trees to enhance the view. it was still only 11.30 so we made a quick decision to drive to Cullen Bay and take the 45 minute harbour tour on the ferry. We both really enjoyed this tour and would recommend it to anyone visiting here, we picked up lots of information about Darwin Harbour and the surrounds. It was interesting seeing Stokes Hill Wharf and Darwin city from the harbour. When we returned we walked up to Cathy's for a beer, as we walked in she was delivering a crab dish to one of the tables and it looked amazing, we will have to come back for this feast. I walked through the bar to ask for a couple of beers and I think Cathy must have taken some very special training in hospitality because when I asked what beers they had she just kept shaking her head and then thumbed me over to the fridges and told me to take a look myself (fuck off came to mind). Anyway I chose a couple of stubbies and then paid the $10 for the two and walked outside to enjoy our drinks. The cafe was full and people just kept coming in, all wanting the crab dishes. You get to chose your own crab and she weighs it for you, they are $119 per kilo which we thought was ok, both crabs they took out while we were there weighed 1.2kg, they take the one you have picked out, cook it and add the sauce you have chosen and bring it out to you, we definitely need to come back for this treat. We had a quick talk to another couple there we were both wondering if the chili crab would be comparable to the ones we had in Singapore Cathy told us hers were better, it will be interesting to see. We drove home from here and lucky we did, there is a horse event at the reserve this afternoon and we found it difficult to get back to our van, by the time the event started there was no way we could get out of there.

We woke up in the morning to see that there was a Classic Ford car show in progress in the Reserve, we didn't have much organised for the day so we planned to take a walk through the show before driving to the Humpty Doo Hotel. We really don't know terribly much about cars, at one stage we were Holden people and up until we purchased our current Pajero Sports to tow the van we had always gravitated towards Holdens but our son likes Fords and we thought he might like to see photos of the show. At first glance it looked like there were about 20 cars on display but as we walked further around we could see the rows of cars doubled up and extended further around the oval than we first thought. Some of the cars were very old and some had number plates from the States, they were all in really good condition, some better than others, there was a range of colours of cars (I doubt they were the original colours) we had a look at the engines when the bonnets were up, this meant absolutely nothing to us but they were very clean, actually you could probably eat your dinner off some of them. There were a couple of merchandise vans and a couple of food vans, Shannons were represented with a stand, if I remember rightly they are they classic car specialists for insurance. We could have voted on the cars for the most popular car but we thought we would leave that to the passionate followers. We weren't there very long but it is a beautiful day and we enjoyed wandering around looking at the cars.

From here we drove to the Humpty Doo Hotel because if you are in the area then you need to say you had a beer here. On the way we contacted Tracey as she lives in Humpty Doo and told her we would be at the pub if she would like to join us there, she doesn't drink but it would just be nice to sit and chat. We arrived around 11.30am and Robb found a table while I went in to order our drinks. While I was waiting I saw an announcement on TV that Darwin is now in lockdown, I asked the girl who came up to serve me if it was legit and she said yes. It certainly was and it commenced at 1.00pm today. I took our drinks back to the table and brought Robb up to date with the news, it is a 48 hour lockdown and masks are needed everywhere outside your home. Tracey joined us, she didn't want a drink, she hadn't heard the news as she walked down to meet us listening to music she wasn't sure if it included Humpty Doo but when the Pub came out to call last drinks at 12.45pm it confirmed it did. We were only sitting with Tracey for 5 mins when we started to notice the traffic build up in the left lane beside the hotel, we thought there may have been an accident in the area and I checked on google and there had been and accident in Humpty Doo but Tracey pointed out to me later that report was from 2012. Anyway it turned out the line up was for the drive through bottle shop at Humpty Doo and then there was another line into the fuel station, we couldn't believe they had all managed to drive there so quickly. We left after last call for drinks to drive to pick up a few items at the supermarket on the way home, it at no time occurred to us how busy the supermarkets would be. We walked up once to the supermarket doors and then decided not to worry about it when we saw how busy it was and that we needed to grab our masks and started to walk back to the car but then realised there were a few items we really needed so decided to pick up our masks from the car and go and brave the queues. We didn't have much to pick up and when we had everything we tried to find the end of the queue, it was really confusing because lines were crossing over each other and we would have had about 50 people in front of us, maybe more, people directed us to the end of the individual lines where we chose one and jumped on the end. We were standing in line for over an hour waiting to reach the registers but we were really impressed with everyone's attitude, we were all really patient and connected with people in front and behind us, we had a lovely long chat with the young girl in front of us. Everyone had heaped trolleys of items a lot of the shelves had been stripped, we didn't see the toilet roll aisle, we only had about 20 items and the young girl in front of us told us to go before her but we had all waited so long it didn't seem fair to jump ahead, it was really lovely of her to ask though. At one stage they stopped people from entering and by the time we finally walked out the car park was nearly empty, we were both really happy to get back home it was 3.30pm by this time and what should have been an easy day and turned out to be the opposite.

Today we woke up in lockdown, I have planned to do a bit of cleaning but before that I realised our prescriptions needed to be repeated so we drove to the closest chemist to have this done. When we returned I started on the washing and cleaning that needed doing. While we were doing this Kylie turned up so that we could pay for the coming week, we had been trying to catch her since we realised we would be staying another week without any luck so it is good now to have this booking confirmed. The van is now spotless and all bedding and linen washed and all we have to do now is to connect with our devices. We are so thankful if we have to stay here for an extended time to have good internet and good TV coverage. We joke about being here for so long we may need to buy a house.