Well, here I am in Darwin - the Top End they call it here ! My god, hot doesn't begin to describe it ! Even worse than Seville if that's at all possible, the humidity is stifling - you get out of the cold shower and even before you've dried yourself off you're dripping with sweat !
So, last few days in Perth were good, went down to Cottesloe to watch the sunset over the Indian Ocean and had Fish & Chips once the sun was down - over here they use spray bottles (think window cleaner) for the vinegar, felt very strange "spraying" the vinegar on !
Got my flight to Melbourne, arrived 5am - I checked out going to see Ramsey Street but it involved a train and 2 bus changes so didn't fancy taking the risk of missing my onward flight to Darwin so I just hung around the airport - my flight was going to Ho Chi Minh City after Darwin - very exotic boarding a plane whose final destination is Vietnam but I suppose from here it's not that far !
Got a decent hostel here and yes, I've met my first cousin - once removed, i.e. my dad's cousin Bruce - not Cap'n Birdseye though ! Got a lift to the Harbour Administration Offices from Charmaine, an Ozzie woman who's in my dorm (she's planning on moving here from Coff's Harbour so she's doing the old getting to know the town, trying to find a job and house etc), asked at reception where I could find him and she said "actually he's just finished a meeting, I'll go and get him for you" - so 5 minutes later I'm introducing myself to a slightly bemused harbour master ! He took me to meet his wife and then asked if i wanted to go with him to pilot in one of the Cargo Tankers !
So, last night I found myself boarding a Timorean Cargo Tanker from the Harbour Master Pilot ship, standing on the bridge with the Indonesian Captain and watching Bruce guide this bloody great big tanker through the harbour - lots of "20 starboard", "midships" and "hard to port" instructions being issued !
Anyway, like I said, a good hostel I'm in - the Banyan View and the dorms are just 4 people with a fair bit of space, me and Charmaine have more or less had the room to ourselves and we get on well. The other night she asked if I wouldn't mind going along with her to the casino here as she wanted to see it and didn't want to go alone ... wasn't the best actually, neither of us spent any money (which is good !) so we had a couple of beers back in town and chilled out in the garden of the hostel.
Bloody hell, right now a mighty tropical rain storm has just kicked off - it seems to do that most days here and the lightening is spectacular - it's absolutely teeming down now outside thank god, should clear the air a bit hopefully !
I don't know if you know (I didn't) that Darwin was the only town in mainland Australia to get bombed in WW II - apparently the Japanese launched a pretty brutal attack. Nothing though compared to the damage of Cyclone Tracey which, I think, destroyed 65% of all buildings.
Anyway - tomorrow I'm flying down to Alice Springs (with Qantas - dear God) and I'm going to be doing a 6 day tour including Uluru - really looking forward to it !
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