Today we were up before 5:00 AM (yes, that time actually exists--who knew?) for our early morning flight from Perth to Darwin. Driving would take us many days and we wouldn't necessarily see things that we want to see. Most people take short flights around Australia. At security, they pulled my bag. I have carried a small children's pair of Fiskar's scissors in my backpack for about 15 years. I use them for embroidery, cutting off tags, etc. They come in very handy. They have a rounded tip and are quite small. I have had these in my bag for flights all over Europe, in the United States, to Australia, and even three flights in the past week. No one has ever pulled them. I asked one security person in Norway, but she said that they are short enough to not be a problem. Now, they are a problem. Of course, he said that I could put them in my checked luggage--though we had already checked our bags--a little late for that, huh? I had no choice but to let him remove them and throw them away. Grrrr. Really ticked me off!!
Anyway, the flight was Qantas, they served a full breakfast even though it was only a 3 hour flight. We also had movies available. And water bottles served after the breakfast. I love Qantas--the flight attendants are so polite and helpful and they know that happy travelers are fed and entertained travelers (at no extra charge).
We got our rental vehicle (each one has been a 7-8 passenger minivan) and drove to our rental in Darwin. Our other rental vehicles have had unlimited mileage; we found out when we paid for this one that we only get 250 kilometers per day. When everything here is so spread out, and with the day trips we have planned, we will use up all three days' mileage on tomorrow's day trip. We will have to pay per kilometer then--and a kilometer isn't very far. We have a house accommodation again (much less expensive than hotels!). This has a main floor with kitchen, living room, dining room, powder room, and two of the couches fold out into beds. The upstairs has 3+ bedrooms. They all have queen size double beds. Two rooms share a bathroom and one room has an en suite. Randy and I are using the room with the en suite and Kathi and Marian have the other two rooms. There is a type of sitting room at the top of the stairs with a futon that folds out. Joshua was given the choice of the fold out upstairs or the fold out in the living room. He chose downstairs in the living room.
After that, we drove to "downtown" Darwin and looked around. We learned that Darwin was attacked numerous times by the Japanese. After the first two attacks which killed nearly 300 people and pretty much leveled parts of Darwin, some American planes attacked them each time they attacked Darwin. Some of the government employees were evacuated to Alice Springs (further inland). I noticed that there was no graffiti in Darwin and bus stops and other places that were painted were freshly painted and kept looking nice.
We walked along a main street, part of which is pedestrian only, then down to Darwin's waterside. There they have a salt water lagoon that is open to the public. At the edge of the lagoon (near the ocean) there is an inflated water playground floating. There are slides (you slide down into the water), a climbing wall, a trampoline, a barrel that you go inside of to turn (like a hamster wheel), and a huge jumping place. You jump off the top onto a very bouncy space. Then you slide to the edge and when the next person jumps, you flip up into the air and into the water--pretty fun. That costs $15 per hour. We're not sure if we'll have time for Joshua to try that out.
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| Joshua |
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| Looking cool! |
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| Joshua behind the fountain |
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| The tallest building in Darwin |
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| The waterfront of Darwin |
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| Waterfront fun |
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| We keep seeing these trees everywhere. Anyone know what they are? |
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| The swimming lagoon |
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| Joshua wading |
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| Joshua building a sand castle |
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| A wave pool |
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| This used to be a town hall and police station, now it is government offices. |
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| Government house--pretty white clapboard house overlooking the ocean |
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| The supreme court of the Northern Territory (NT) |
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| The insignia on the gate of the government house |
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| A Tamarind tree |
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| Joshua looking up at the tree |
After dinner at Subway, we went to a beach for sunset. Very pretty, and we found some great sand dollars and other shells. We also saw crabs in the water that we were standing in! They were about 4 inches across. We saw millions of little holes from the tiny sand crabs in the sand. It must have been low tide, because the beach area was very deep and there were tidal pools near the back part as well as marks of the water being there. High tide brings in a lot of water!
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| Sand crab hole |
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| my legs in the warm ocean water! |
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| Some of our shells. Some of the sand dollars have different patterns |
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| Some shells that have dots and lines--crab shells maybe? |
After that, we went to the grocery store to get food and back to our house for a dessert of ice cream and strawberries (prepared and planned by Kathi and Marian). Joshua and Kathi boiled their shells to clean them.
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| Joshua's and my shells |
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| Kathi's shells |
