D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d.....DARRRRRR-WINNNNN
Tuesday 5th September - Sunday 10th September
Facking hell it’s hot!! Start of spring and we walk straight into 33 degree’s and the most uncomfortable, sticky night I’ve ever experienced. The caravan park hostess kindly gave us her best spot – no-one else seemed to want it, being as it was beside the bins, sewage trap and with nary a blade of grass for shade. I tell ya, I was becoming an expert at judging what trees would be best for shade at various times of the day and early the next morning, I arranged to move the van into a blessedly shady spot.
Darwin’s a pretty flat town, with a major airport smack in the middle and which is evidently open 24 hours a day and the drive in is punctuated by a number of what look now like car parking strips but which, during WWII, used to be makeshift airstrips. I reckon the longest was only 100m which shows how little run up planes of 60 years ago needed. At quite a few places there were plaques, memorials, little notices showing what had been built and why. Darwin was the major jumping off point from Oz into the Nip-occupied SE Asia. When I looked at the volume of men and materials moved through in 1943, for instance, you can see the Nips were in trouble. In one month towards the middle of 1943, nearly 500,000 tonnes of equipment passed through Darwin. 1 month. That’s a lot of Nip bashing. I assume that this was purely ground freight too. Tanks, guns, artillery, troop carriers etc etc. Darwin also has the dubious distinction of being Australia’s most heavily bombed town. Townsville and a couple of other places got whacked too, but Darwin was regularly swiped until the Green and Khaki tide rolled the Nips back.
Loads to look forward to here. Museums, aircraft hangers and what not, a history fans paradise, but that would all have to wait as I needed to get Harriet sorted out – she had perished sway bar bushes and needed a new gearbox mount, so needed to get into dry docks for sorting. The advantage was that I could thoroughly scope the centre and there’s a good load of boozers, all with great bands on as well as an air-conditioned ‘Gloria Jeans’. Bliss! After dropping Harriet off, I walked past a KBR office, which I presumed was where the guys were based for the Alice-Darwin railroad extension, completed last year. I was nearly tempted….! Yeah right.
Towards the end of the week, Christophe Lummy Pie got in touch from Indonesia and we arranged Bali for Sunday 10th September. I booked the trip on Friday and to my surprise, discovered that the flight was only 2 hours! Sydney’s 4 n 1/2. That’s fucked! I also found a backpackers, ‘Geckos’, who allowed you to crash in your van whilst using the facilities and at only 12 bucks a night. You do the math!
Thursday night, there is a delightful beach market held at Mindel Beach, where the locals hawk their wares and whatnot. We cruised down for a bite to eat and some wine on the beach front but it wasn’t quite what I expected! I had visions of al fresco dining on the beach on recliners with a small table between us watching sunset but in fact it was a ‘do it yourself’ with people bringing all their own goodies and chairs etc. Improvisation won the day though and we caught a delightful sunset.
The thing that sticks in my mind was an aboriginal guy, wearing shorts and with a bongo drum, banging it listlessly as he grinned inanely at passers-by, before getting up and sitting next to people, leering at them and banging his drum until they moved off and he moved onto his next group. I dunno, he might’ve been having fun. He might’ve just needed some love but I really resented what he was doing. He didn’t come our way, which was great, I’d’ve probably just walked off too, but I felt ashamed for hating him in that moment.
As we strolled through the market, I caught the back-end of a wonderful fire show being done by a group of lads. They’d attracted a pretty big crown and they were good too. The wine was kicking in now and I really slipped into a relaxed feeling watching their skill with fire balls, rope and what not. As they finished, a rock/punk sound, with heavy didjeridoo interspersed came through and drawn towards it, I found a group called EmDee performing.
They were awesome, creating some great sounds with the 4 didj’s on a frame, guitar, singer and drums. They also had attracted quite a crowd and to my pleasurable surprise, there were about a dozen aboriginal folk up front dancing their socks off without a care in the world. It was great to see and we found out later that their style of dancing is called ‘earth dancing’, a swaying, jumping motion which looks difficult but is very beautiful to watch. I’m not sure what happened though, but someone had definitely turned the heat up and I was slowly melting – 9pm by the sea! After about an hour, I buckled and had to make a dash for an air-conditioned taxi to take me to an air-conditioned bar where I could drink cold beer under an air-conditioning unit. I’ve worshipped beer in a variety of circumstances but that one I had is definitely up there!
Saturday, I hired a car (air-con, manual gears, 2 litres of injected power – what bliss!) and scooted around Darwin, taking in the local Nudist beach… my first ever experience and also took in the local croc farm, where, despite making a show of feeding the crocs and showing off their breeding couples, the farm really churns out handbags, shoes, belts and the like. I had a whale (or maybe a croc) of a time pointing out various babies that I reckoned would look good on my feet and my ironic questions of where I could get a matching elephant foot umbrella stand and Koala purse where met with blank eyes from the park staff and looks of hatred from the various middle-aged, foreign women visiting! The biggest cheer of the day was reserved for the news that the Nip’s pay the most money for croc fashion items! Up to $20000 for perfect hides. I’m in the wrong game, but you can start to understand how they do the Whales for ‘research’ and had no qualms about adorning their military offices with the rendered human remains of their victims during WWII. It’s all about the fashion item daaaahling! It pissed me off a bit after a while, a fashion farm masquerading as a conservation sanctuary ‘culling’ those few specimens now and then. Anyway, I’d just helped it by paying to go in, so I can’t talk!
Facking hell it’s hot!! Start of spring and we walk straight into 33 degree’s and the most uncomfortable, sticky night I’ve ever experienced. The caravan park hostess kindly gave us her best spot – no-one else seemed to want it, being as it was beside the bins, sewage trap and with nary a blade of grass for shade. I tell ya, I was becoming an expert at judging what trees would be best for shade at various times of the day and early the next morning, I arranged to move the van into a blessedly shady spot.
Darwin’s a pretty flat town, with a major airport smack in the middle and which is evidently open 24 hours a day and the drive in is punctuated by a number of what look now like car parking strips but which, during WWII, used to be makeshift airstrips. I reckon the longest was only 100m which shows how little run up planes of 60 years ago needed. At quite a few places there were plaques, memorials, little notices showing what had been built and why. Darwin was the major jumping off point from Oz into the Nip-occupied SE Asia. When I looked at the volume of men and materials moved through in 1943, for instance, you can see the Nips were in trouble. In one month towards the middle of 1943, nearly 500,000 tonnes of equipment passed through Darwin. 1 month. That’s a lot of Nip bashing. I assume that this was purely ground freight too. Tanks, guns, artillery, troop carriers etc etc. Darwin also has the dubious distinction of being Australia’s most heavily bombed town. Townsville and a couple of other places got whacked too, but Darwin was regularly swiped until the Green and Khaki tide rolled the Nips back.
Loads to look forward to here. Museums, aircraft hangers and what not, a history fans paradise, but that would all have to wait as I needed to get Harriet sorted out – she had perished sway bar bushes and needed a new gearbox mount, so needed to get into dry docks for sorting. The advantage was that I could thoroughly scope the centre and there’s a good load of boozers, all with great bands on as well as an air-conditioned ‘Gloria Jeans’. Bliss! After dropping Harriet off, I walked past a KBR office, which I presumed was where the guys were based for the Alice-Darwin railroad extension, completed last year. I was nearly tempted….! Yeah right.
Towards the end of the week, Christophe Lummy Pie got in touch from Indonesia and we arranged Bali for Sunday 10th September. I booked the trip on Friday and to my surprise, discovered that the flight was only 2 hours! Sydney’s 4 n 1/2. That’s fucked! I also found a backpackers, ‘Geckos’, who allowed you to crash in your van whilst using the facilities and at only 12 bucks a night. You do the math!
Thursday night, there is a delightful beach market held at Mindel Beach, where the locals hawk their wares and whatnot. We cruised down for a bite to eat and some wine on the beach front but it wasn’t quite what I expected! I had visions of al fresco dining on the beach on recliners with a small table between us watching sunset but in fact it was a ‘do it yourself’ with people bringing all their own goodies and chairs etc. Improvisation won the day though and we caught a delightful sunset.
The thing that sticks in my mind was an aboriginal guy, wearing shorts and with a bongo drum, banging it listlessly as he grinned inanely at passers-by, before getting up and sitting next to people, leering at them and banging his drum until they moved off and he moved onto his next group. I dunno, he might’ve been having fun. He might’ve just needed some love but I really resented what he was doing. He didn’t come our way, which was great, I’d’ve probably just walked off too, but I felt ashamed for hating him in that moment.As we strolled through the market, I caught the back-end of a wonderful fire show being done by a group of lads. They’d attracted a pretty big crown and they were good too. The wine was kicking in now and I really slipped into a relaxed feeling watching their skill with fire balls, rope and what not. As they finished, a rock/punk sound, with heavy didjeridoo interspersed came through and drawn towards it, I found a group called EmDee performing.
They were awesome, creating some great sounds with the 4 didj’s on a frame, guitar, singer and drums. They also had attracted quite a crowd and to my pleasurable surprise, there were about a dozen aboriginal folk up front dancing their socks off without a care in the world. It was great to see and we found out later that their style of dancing is called ‘earth dancing’, a swaying, jumping motion which looks difficult but is very beautiful to watch. I’m not sure what happened though, but someone had definitely turned the heat up and I was slowly melting – 9pm by the sea! After about an hour, I buckled and had to make a dash for an air-conditioned taxi to take me to an air-conditioned bar where I could drink cold beer under an air-conditioning unit. I’ve worshipped beer in a variety of circumstances but that one I had is definitely up there!
Saturday, I hired a car (air-con, manual gears, 2 litres of injected power – what bliss!) and scooted around Darwin, taking in the local Nudist beach… my first ever experience and also took in the local croc farm, where, despite making a show of feeding the crocs and showing off their breeding couples, the farm really churns out handbags, shoes, belts and the like. I had a whale (or maybe a croc) of a time pointing out various babies that I reckoned would look good on my feet and my ironic questions of where I could get a matching elephant foot umbrella stand and Koala purse where met with blank eyes from the park staff and looks of hatred from the various middle-aged, foreign women visiting! The biggest cheer of the day was reserved for the news that the Nip’s pay the most money for croc fashion items! Up to $20000 for perfect hides. I’m in the wrong game, but you can start to understand how they do the Whales for ‘research’ and had no qualms about adorning their military offices with the rendered human remains of their victims during WWII. It’s all about the fashion item daaaahling! It pissed me off a bit after a while, a fashion farm masquerading as a conservation sanctuary ‘culling’ those few specimens now and then. Anyway, I’d just helped it by paying to go in, so I can’t talk!
posted by Captain | 6:32 pm
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