We are still in Darwin waiting on repairs to the van, in the meantime Darwin has been placed in lockdown because of Covid19. We had already booked another week at the Reserve because of the repairs but now it seems that everything is going to be held up a bit longer. Melbourne is not in lockdown so maybe our parts have been sent on to Darwin but we cannot find out until after lockdown to see if the repairer has received them. I am thinking I may need to get a bit more proactive with these repairs if we don't hear back from the person we have already enlisted to help us. We are supposed to be out of lockdown tomorrow afternoon at 1.00pm, hopefully everything is ok and this goes ahead, if so we will call into our repairer to see how they are going and I think after that I may start looking at ordering the parts into the reserve where we are staying and then finding someone to do the work on the van. In the meantime we are not doing a terrible lot and we are both very bored with just sitting here. Lockdown was extended for another 72 hours and now not due to finish up until 1.00pm on Friday afternoon. Friday morning we sat for our coffee and turned the radio onto a NT radio station so that we could hear the broadcast to say if the lockdown was to continue or finish, thankfully it finished on time. Robb had an appointment in the afternoon for his first Covid shot so after lunch we drove to the medical centre and signed in and it wasn't long until we were called in by the nurse. I told her I had an appointment for Wednesday for mine so she said she would do mine too, I was ecstatic about this as it seemed such a waste to come back on Wednesday. After our shot I had to go out and fill out my paperwork and then we had to wait 10 minutes to see if there were any reactions to the vaccination after that we were on our way. We drove from here to Humpty Doo pub for a drink to celebrate being free again, one drink and then we were on our way home for Robb to connect to his weekly mates call where he catches up with his camping buddies. I will plan something for us for tomorrow now that we can get out.
Robb had a horrible night's sleep because of pain in his knee and because of this we thought we would try to find somewhere in Darwin he could purchase a walking stick to help him get around. Our first stop though was at the caravan repairers to see if they were working today, they weren't but we peeked in their window and saw a few parcels there, hopefully one of them is the part we are waiting on. From here we drove around to find the disability suppliers to see if we could get a walking stick for Robb, they were a bit difficult to find but we did eventually and Robb did find a walking stick there that suited him. We drove back to the dump point to empty out our toilet cylinder. From here we drove to Aquascene where we were hoping to feed the fish from this attraction. We turned up here with another 8 cars all waiting for it to open at 11.00am but that never happened. We all tried to phone to see what was happening and one of the girls did manage to contact them to find out they were closed until 9 July 2021. We were a bit stretched then on what to do but thought we would take a drive down East Point Road to Lake Alexander and have a bit of a wander, well I thought I would wander, Robb's knee was still too sore to do much. East Point Road is a beautiful part of Darwin and well worth a visit. Lake Alexander looks like a lovely place for families to spend a few hours. We left here and drove to Cullen Bay where we planned to have lunch at Cathy's place. We had stopped here on the day we went on the harbour cruise for a drink and we loved the look of the crab meals they were serving and decided to call back here at some time for a chili crab. It was funny because the service we received on that first visit was very off hand, I was practically told to get my own effing beers but this time Cathy was very attentive and nice, not sure what happened here but the service was almost effusive and she is looking forward to us returning. Robb chose a crab for us and it weighed 1.3kgs, you pay by the kilo and it is $119.95 per kg. We ordered the chili crab and had to wait nearly an hour for the meal but we sat and had a couple of beers and went through some of the tourist information we had. The crab was very tasty and there was plenty in one crab for the two of us for lunch, the chili sauce was excellent and we finished it off with some boiled rice. Cathy gave us a discount on the meal which we thought was very nice and added an extra bowl of rice to the meal. If we are still here next week we may return for another meal. We drove straight home because Robb was keen to rest his knee, I spent the afternoon outside while Robb rested on the bed with the air con going.
Our plan today was to take The Darwin History and Wartime Experience but when we turned up at the pick up point we discovered it wasn't running today. After our experience at Aquascene this seems to be a bit of a trend in Darwin that they turn up for work when it suits. We didn't have much else planned so we thought we would drive back to the waterfront and have a beer. There aren't a lot of parking spots along the waterfront, there is a parking centre but we didn't really want to park here because Robb is having lots of issues with his knee and we are looking for the easiest way for him to get around. We decided to park up the road from the Information Centre where there is a skybridge over to the waterfront that we thought might be easier for Robb, there is one set of stairs but he thought he could manage these and then we could catch the lift down to the ground floor. We managed this quite well and then walked along to find somewhere we hadn't been previously and came to Curve Bar and Cafe where once Robb was seated I went up to order a drink. Robb likes a pale ale and I prefer a lager. The bar was actually a coffee outlet and they didn't have any beer on tap so I ordered our drinks and asked for them to be poured into glasses which the girl serving us was very happy to do, should you be classed as a bar if you don't have drinks on tap, not sure but it was very pleasant sitting there looking over the waterfront. When we were finished we caught the lift up to the skybridge and walked back to the car. I took heaps of photos from the skybridge, I love this beautiful city, the scenery is amazing and everything is within easy reach.
I had emailed the owner of the Darwin History and Wartime Experience and they said they would be operating on Monday so I asked if they would put a couple of tickets away for us which they agreed to do. On our way to pick up this tour we called into the caravan repairers to see if our part had arrived and unfortunately it wasn't good news. We are not that confident that they are being very proactive on chasing up the part so I thought this afternoon I would try to follow it up with Dometic myself which I did without much success, I am waiting for a callback or response to my email. In the meantime I contacted the repairers and asked if they would be able to do some type of temporary repair to the hole in the roof which is the main concern we have and they said, yes they could, so we will call in there tomorrow morning and see if we can book the van in to have the temporary repairs taken care of. From here we drove to pick up the tour which we both found very interesting, Darwin has had a very dramatic history with all the damage from WW11 and Cyclone Tracey, a lot of which we vaguely knew about so we enjoyed hearing the full story of both of these events. I have mentioned previously but I love this very small, compact city, i think it would be a great place to live.
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