DARWIN

THURSDAY 5

Settling into Howard Springs Caravan Park. We were here 12 years ago and it has certainly changed since then. Darwin is full, every caravan park is full up and still the caravans keep coming. It appears that every second van is from Victoria and the rest of the states make up the other half.

FRIDAY 6

Off into Darwin on the bike, we wanted to check out what is what. My how Darwin has grown, in fact there are three major suburbs and they are much larger than Darwin city area, there are approx 100,000 people.
We are close to a city called Palmerston so at least we don't have to go 30 km for our shopping. Industry  and housing is non-stop to Darwin, just like from Perth to Mandurah.
Walked around the shops in town, mainly souvenir shops and then went out to the famous Darwin Wharf Precinct and checked out the harbour.

Lunch at "Stokes Hill Wharf"

SATURDAY 7

A day home today. Mike and John went of to the National GoKart championships and had a great afternoon. Unfortunately I managed to brake a tooth so looks like a dentist next week.

SUNDAY 8

Marie flew in this afternoon so off to the airport to meet her. It is great to see her and she will stay with us for 3 weeks.

You can not stop a good woman working!

MONDAY 9

Managed to get a dental appointment today so now I have 2 mended teeth, thank goodness.

Cosy setup at Howard Springs.

TUESDAY 10

A day out today. Off to the Territory Wildlife Park. We expected to see wildlife but not much of that but we did walk through lots of bush, through the nocturnal house, large aquarium and several bird life areas. There was a raptor display and several raptors from large black breasted buzzard, Brahminy Kite (majestic), crested hawk plus an Osprey who was rewarded with a fish and flew to a tree above the crowd and proceeded to eat it. A Jabiru made an appearance, did a small bow, danced around the pond and went back again.

Black Breasted Buzzard

Jabiru

Orange Footed Scrub Fowl.

While walking through the bush we saw our first scrub fowl.

WEDNESDAY 11

Morning tea in Darwin with friends Terry and Lorraine (from Litchfield ) at the Ducks Nuts.

THURSDAY 12

The Mindal Markets are held every Thursday evening and Sunday. The caravan park provides a bus to take campers to the Mindal markets so caught the bus and we were pleased we did as parking was a nightmare and we didn't have to worry as to how to find the markets. We had a great night. Watched the sun set, was great but definitely not as speckie as WA sun sets.

SATURDAY 14

More markets today. This time to Coolilinga, south of here. It is great visiting different markets as each one has different things and of course I am always interested in what other people make.
Terry and Lorraine came for a BBQ, great night, lots of laughs so hope we can catch up somewhere along the way.

Lorraine,Lois,Marie,Terry,Trysha,John & Mike

SUNDAY 15

Trysha's birthday today so we all went out for lunch. Went to a club in Palmerston, food average but had a fun lunch.

MONDAY 16

Darwin today to book Marie's bus ticket through to Kununurra and then on to Broome where she meets up with her tour group.
Thought we would investigate another shopping area at Casurina and spent time wandering around the shops.
Have found Spotlight so off we went and Marie bought some yarn and has been very busy knitting curly scarves. We can't have idle hands in this place.

TUESDAY 17

Trysha off to Sydney today for Dr's appointments. John went flying and managed to find a tree and now helicopter is sitting up a tree unable to be retrieved. Oh well maybe a big wind may blow it down.