We’ve been to a couple of restaurants (with contrasting results – see previous blog), done the Mindil Beach markets, Parap markets, found a favourite cafe for coffee and breakfast and Jen has tracked down an icecream shop with her icecream and chocolate sensitive nose (Lamington flavour is the go apparently). The music and food at the Mindil markets was outstanding. I found a didge and drum duo (Rawdidge) that had me spellbound. I would have happily spent the entire evening just listening to them. I had intended bringing my didge with me hoping that 5 months of practise would really improve my playing ability, but along with a number of other items, it’s at home in the forgotten items pile. Having seen these guys play, I’m really missing it now. We also saw a superb English backpacker duo at the Parap markets this morning who set themselves up busking amongst the crowd. Very entertaining French and Spanish songs that drew quite a crowd and filled their collection hat almost to capacity. They won’t have any problems feeding themselves for the next few days and judging by the crowd demographics, I’m pretty sure they won’t be lonely or cold for the next few nights either.
From our base here in Darwin, we took the camping gear (yes, back to real camping in a tent with sleeping bags!) down to Litchfield National Park. Yet another absolutely magnificent part of the world. We drove out to the Litchfield Park Cafe where we had hamburgers that were up there with the best I’ve ever had. From the cafe we then made our way back towards the town of Bachelor at the start of the National Park stopping at a few of the destinations along the way. We swam at Wangi Falls, went on to Tolmer Falls lookout, tested my recently acquired 4WD driving skills into the Lost City along a real 4WD track (complete with sandy sections and drop offs, a really fun drive), then onto our favourite swimming spot of this trip, Buley Rockpools and then onto our overnight campsite and the best of the falls, Florence Falls. Florence Falls had 2WD and 4WD drive in campgrounds, both of which were filling up quickly, so we claimed a spot at the closer 2WD campground. We then went out to check what the 4WD campsites were like and this was another real 4WD track that again was a lot of fun to drive and which also tested the new skills. I still haven’t quite got the nerve to try one of the over the wheel hubs creek crossings yet, but maybe one day.
The van park where we’re staying is really lovely with just the right character and feel. You might think that being just two to three kilometres away from the Darwin airport runways and the RAAF base would be a problem but like any other airport, Darwin airport has a curfew too. The commercial flights are only allowed to take off and land over the caravan park between the hours of 4am to 8am and 10pm and 1am and the RAAF has even tighter controls on the noisiest of its aircraft. Hercules and helicopter gunships are restricted to a very small window: 2am to 3am. So, as you can see noise is only a problem for the briefest of moments each day.
Tonight we're off to see Clare Bowditch, who's here for the Darwin Festival - we managed to buy the last two tickets on our first night here. Tomorrow will be our last day in Darwin and then it’s off to Kakadu. I’ll be sorry to leave this city but am looking forward to Kakadu.
Raw Didge - I enjoyed these guys so much, I took one of there CDs and a hefty dose of inspiration away with me.