A note from Wandering Justin: I had a little lapse in posting this week … lots of freelance work to finish! Also, the next entry or two won’t have many photos. I tend to take fewer photos in the cities.
Saturday, Aug. 25
The previous night, our foursome had decided to meet at the Parap Village Market. That’s about a mile-long walk from the center of Darwin. This market goes on every Saturday, and it’s a good way to dig into the Asian flavor of Darwin. There are booths with cooked food, pre-packaged stuff, fresh fruit, vegetables and ingredients you can make yourself. There’s a lot of the usual schlocky weekend market stuff, too…hemp clothing, jams, bad art and the like.
But I ate a bunch of stuff I’d never seen before, and it was all tasty. Couldn’t tell you the names now, that’s for sure. Except I do remember pawpaw salad. It’s pretty much raw, unripe shredded bits of papaya covered in a chili sauce and peanuts. Doesn’t sound like much, but it’s an explosion of flavor.
We were pretty lazy, so we spent most of our time at the market, walking back to town and just hanging about. Orla left for Sydney, but that evening we met Karen again for dinner. She brought some Italian guy, Michael, with her. He was a bit different from us, being about a decade older. And he was clearly looking for some female attention (What? An Italian chasing tail? Never!)!
But still, he was a pretty fun character to have around. He led us down to the Darwin Wharf Precinct, which is right on the water and offers some nice nighttime views. Even the the compressed nitrogen gas plant across the bay takes on a romantic light at night! There’s also a spotlight on the water, which lets everyone see a lot of cool water creatures. My favorite was a big ol’ box jellyfish! The precinct is set up a lot like a food court…there are all sorts of places to eat. I found a place offering camel schnitzel, so I had to try it. Camel tastes a lot like veal, and is much more tender than I expected.
We’d done a lot of walking, so by the time 10 rolled around, we were pretty well out.
Tomorrow, on to Cairns!
Sunday, Aug. 26
We were up plenty early to catch our bus to the airport. It’s the usual Australian airport experience…fairly quick and a lot less of the maniacal hysteria of a U.S. airport. We boarded our Qantas flight, a little Boeing 717. It’s about a three-hour flight to Cairns, and obviously not as many people make that flight as they do from Sydney to Darwin.
We’re barely in the air before the breakfast cart is rolling (wow, they don’t starve their passengers to keep them in a docile, calorie-deprived state!). Now, it gets strange: After about an hour of flying, we were landing again.
It seems this flight also stops in a tiny mining and fishing town called Gove. It’s a single-gate airport with a handful of private planes. We stayed about 30 minutes before we’re back in the air on the way to Cairns.
No more surprises on the rest of the flight. Today, though, is to be one of my most trying days: We’re renting a car, and I have to drive on the opposite side of the road. D’oh!
The Avis people are all really nice, much more so than the airport car rental agents I’ve dealt with before. They’ve quickly got us on the way, and have told us all the cool places near by that we really should visit.
Soon, I was completely freaked out as 15 years of driving experience turned to its opposite side. I kept trying to signal, but wound up hitting the turn signals. Even putting the car in drive was a chore, with all the controls being flipped. At least the gas and the brake pedals are in the same place, or this would’ve been a short trip!
We were pretty impressed with our hotel, the Heritage. Apparently, it’s part of a chain. But after several days of either camping and the Mom’s dorm-style looks, this place was a palace. And cheaper than the Mom at about $75 a night. Sweet!
As usual, we stowed our stuff and immediately started walking. The Heritage is a nice distance away from the hurly-burly of central Cairns: Close enough to walk, but far enough not to notice the noise. After a few minutes of walking, we were watching a weekend criterium bike race, looking at a replica pirate ship sailing into the harbor and enjoying an artificial “beach” area. There’s also a huge shopping district down that way. On the weekend, you can find a huge local farmer’s market. One booth was selling keychains made from kangaroo scrotums! How funny is that?
One of my missions during our stroll through the shopping district was to find a cool Australia sports jersey, preferably soccer. But over the past week, I’d really learned that soccer stuff isn’t easy to come by, even on the opening weekend. So I decided to start my collection with a shirt from the Australian Football League Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles team. We also grabbed some boomerangs from a local shop, some for our house, another for Sarah’s parents and some for the nieces. I’ve been noticing the didge prices are really high here, so I’m glad I grabbed one in Darwin…and got to see a baby wallaby, too!
Another early morning and a lot of marching around was starting to make us feel hungry, so we tried to grab an early dinner. With the clock saying 4 p.m., our pickings were pretty slim. Very few places were open. But I’d gotten lucky by picking up one of those tourist magazines, which said there was a quirky little hostel called The Green Ant that was open early.
We headed over to The Green Ant’s cafe and find a rather large, goateed, red-headed Australian turned Coloradoan back to Australian in charge. He not only makes a mean kangaroo burger and a great salad, but he’s good at spinning some fun tales. I’ll also say that The Green Ant is one of the few places in town that is open early and doesn’t charge a fortune for some decent food. If I ever get back to Cairns, I’m going to The Green Ant.
After our early dinner, we headed back to the hotel and grabbed a quick nap. We also checked out the nighttime market downtown, where Sarah scores a few packets of kangaroo jerky for her dad.
We walked around for a few more hours, and then headed to bed to get ready for some serious driving tomorrow. Lots of pictures for the next few days, so come back soon!
