Moving On

We moved caravan parks yesterday, about 10km further out on the edges of Darwin. The van was due for its 10,000 km service, so we took the opportunity to have that done. The new park has its pluses and minuses. It is much quieter and shadier than the other one (which was under the flight path from the airport not far away - at times it sounded like the planes were about to land on our roof in the middle of the night), and the sites are larger so we don't have neighbours only an arm's length away. However, they don't have ensuite sites, and we are a little further away from the facilities block than we would like, so showering is a lot less convenient.

John likes the idea of the onsite bar/bistro, we took advantage of happy hour after we checked in yesterday afternoon to have a quiet beer by the pool.

The main downside only became apparent in the early evening yesterday - there is obviously some problem with their electricity supply and we lost power 4 times in the space of 2 hours. Each time it happened you could hear a cry of annoyance go up all over the park. Lucky we have a battery in the caravan so we could flip the lights over to DC each time, but it was very annoying, we were lucky it didn't happen while we were microwaving the rice to go with our curry. One of our near neighbours said that the same thing had happened the last couple of nights, we hope it isn't going to continue for the entire 4 weeks we are here.

Mindil Beach Market

Mindil Beach Market is a famous Darwin attraction, and a must see on every visitor's list. It runs from 5:30 on Thursday and Sunday evenings, although reportedly the Sunday market is a much smaller affair. Mindil beach faces due West, so part of the experience is watching the sunset over the sea. However, last night the beach was so crowded we decided we would come back on a non-market evening for this experience.

There were literally thousands of people there last night. Luckily the car park is about the size of the MCG, but bizarrely it has only one access road, so the queue to get in was breathtaking. Once you did get into the car park there were no marshalls or marked spaces, it was a free for all in a huge grassy paddock, the dust raised from the huge numbers of cars had to be seen to be believed. When we left a little after 8pm there were still cars trying to get in, people had parked along the access road reducing it to one lane, the word chaos sprung immediately to mind as a stream of cars leaving competed with those trying to enter.

The market itself was an interesting mix of standard market tat and unique top-end stalls. Many of the usual suspects were there (herbal soap anyone?) but you could also get crocodile leather whips, aboriginal bark paintings and didgeridoos. The huge number of food stalls are the real attraction. Superficially these resembled those in any market all over the world, but look closer and you see that the burger stall sells crocodile, barramundi and buffalo burgers, the sausage stall (called Road Kill, motto 'you kill it, we grill it') sells wallaby and possum sausages, plus crocodile and camel skewers, and the range of Asian food includes Filipino and Timorese (the Timorese chilli beef was particularly tasty).

Not being good shoppers, we inspected every stall and bought one fridge magnet, but we did enjoy sitting on our camp chairs getting stuck into the top end tucker.

Not just death and taxes

You may think that when you don't have a house you don't have to do any housework, but unfortunately you'd be wrong. There are still most of the same jobs to be done around the van, although admittedly they are often faster.

The first regular job is the laundry. 3 loads every week, usually on a Tuesday. All van parks have a laundry, although they do vary greatly in quality. Generally a load of washing costs $3, although it can be up to $4, particularly in larger towns like Darwin. We always save any $1 coins we get so we always have change for the washing machine. Depending on how many machines the park has, and how busy they are, you sometimes have to queue up to get a machine, and if the park doesn't have many clothes lines it pays to get in early or you could end up having to use a dryer. Luckily we've never been in that situation yet, it helps that we have been mostly been travelling in warm dry weather so if the washing machines and/or lines are all full then you can usually do a load later in the day and it will still be dry by nightfall.

After the washing there is of course the ironing. Some caravanners don't bother with this, but Wendy absolutely refuses to use an unironed hanky, and if you are going to iron hankies you may as well iron shirts and shorts as well. At first we were using the caravan park iron, but some of these are pretty awful so we bought our own in Port Augusta. We've only come across one park so far that didn't have an ironing board, and luckily we left there the day after we did the washing, so we've done the ironing every week so far. The only problem we have now is the little iron jug has disappeared (left behind at one of the parks no doubt) and try as we might we haven't been able to find another one, so a water glass has to do the job.

On the subject of washing, we also have to wash the dishes after each meal. No dishwasher in the van unfortunately! There isn't enough bench space to allow dirty dishes to pile up, so usually even the 2 bowls, spoons and glasses from breakfast get done straight away.

Cleaning the van, while faster than cleaning a house, also has to be done more often. We sweep virtually every day, sometimes more than once, as we are constantly in and out. Here in Darwin it isn't as bad as further South, in the outback the red dust gets into everything, the floor seemed to feel gritty 5 minutes after it had just been swept. On the same principle, benches and other surfaces needed to be cleaned down every few days in the outback, here in more civilised climes it is once or twice a week.

There are also some jobs that need doing in the van that don't apply at home. The toilet cartridge fills up about once a week and needs to be taken to the park dump point and emptied. The first time you do this is a bit embarrassing, wheeling a box full of wee around the park, but it didn't take us long to realise that everybody has to do the same thing. We also need to keep the back of the car clean, as John leans against this when hitching up the van, at first we couldn't figure out why his t-shirts were getting the nasty red stain on the shoulder!

At least we don't have to remember to put rubbish bins out!

Settled in Darwin

We arrived in Darwin on Friday, set up the caravan and went straight over to the golf club and joined up. The weekend of course was devoted to golf comps, so we didn't get to actually start to look around until Monday. Whatever wasn't bombed into oblivion during WWII was torn apart by Cyclone Tracey in 1974, so one of the defining characteristics of Darwin is its newness. It is also green and lush, which I guess is to be expected deep into the tropics.

We had planned to stay in Darwin for 9 weeks, basically spend the Southern Winter here, but the caravan park we are staying at would only allow us to make an initial booking for 4 weeks. Having now arrived here and settled in we decided not to try and push them to extend - it is quite a cramped park, the ensuite bathroom is not very nice and we seem to be under the flight path of the airport 10km away. We tried to evict the resident frog from the ensuite, but he kept coming back so now we just leave him be. He spends the day in the corner of the toiletries shelf looking quite dowdy (first picture below), then turns a brilliant emerald green when he comes out to hunt in the evening. He does have an anti-social habit of pooing on top of John's elbow cream tin, so we are making sure everything stays firmly closed. We are now booked into a different park for the second half of our stay here, and have updated the itinerary below. We'll only spend 4 weeks at the second park and not 5, as we have added a few extra stops once we leave Darwin so will be leaving a week earlier than we originally planned.

Given the length of our planned stay here we aren't rushing into the tourist things, however we have had a look around the city centre, including a tour of Parliament House which is quite an impressive building (that's not it in the picture above, that is the remains of the old town hall). Because it is only a small city you can easily walk around and have a look at everything, including quite a few war memorials, mostly related to the bombing that the Japanese did during 1942 and 1943. We'll still do occasional blog updates diuring our stay here, as we experience more of the delights of Australia's only tropical capital city.