Sep 15 - 25 (Day 227 - 237) - Darwin

Our stay in Darwin ended up quite a bit longer than we'd intended, simply because of the building heat and humidity. Maybe we're getting soft, maybe we just haven't fully acclimatised yet, but either way the thought of heading out into Kakadu National Park where we heard it was 40+ degrees didn't fill us with anticipation!

Water Parks

While we have been staying in Darwin we have visited numerous free water fun parks as you've read before you can't swim in the ocean up here so it's great they provide such facilities for the locals and also the tourists that pass through.

One of the water fun parks was Leanyer Recreation Park which had some pretty fun slides that we all went on. It even turned into a bit of a competition to make it just that little bit more fun. Greg of course won because he's the heaviest (not in a bad way). The red slide you could go down with two people on a double ring and what I didn't realise to start with was that it was actually a very dark slide. I really did not enjoy going down this slide as I don't like things being pitch black and not being able to see. It's just one of those things about me. I've never liked pitch black darkness. It was also because you couldn't see when the twists and the turns were in the slide which made it even more scary (to some others they find this thrilling). I went down with Jude and he was absolutely fine with it all but I was a shaky mess and needed time to get my legs back again. I was quite happy to go on the other ones once my poor heart had recovered but not the red one. All the others went down numerous times but I just didn't want to go down that one again. 

There was also a playground nearby which the kids raced around on and a fairly shallow pool which we all enjoyed. Bek and the boys enjoyed getting to know some Aboriginal children from a school in Katherine who were up for the week. They were fascinated by Bek's hair and braces and wanted to try on her goggles. They played with her for quite some time by diving down under the water between her legs and a few other games. They were all very polite and excited about making a new friend and waved and shouted goodbye so many times as they left.

The other free water fun Park was in Palmerston not far from where we were staying. This was great fun as it was a huge 6 person slide. So of course we got a bit competitive and tried to beat each other to the bottom. Again because Greg was the heaviest he would zoom past us all and win so allowed some of us to go down slightly earlier to see if we could beat him that way. It did work some of the time but it was great fun no matter what we came.

The Palmerston water park

Caravan Park

The facilities at the Darwin Freespirit Resort / caravan park are pretty good. They have a jumping pillow and 3 pools - 2 fairly small pools, and one larger one near a restaurant/bistro bar.  We've mostly used the little one that is closer to our end of the caravan park as it's quite a walk to the larger pool. The park is quite big and seemed to be the best price for what it has to offer in Darwin compared to other caravan parks that I looked into. Other families have said the same.

This is the small pool we mostly used numerous times a day
to cool off in between school or business work
or work on the blog. :)

The boys have found other boys to chat to and play games with.
Here they are doing rubix cubes.

While staying here the kids asked to make ice-cream which they had read about in a science book. So when I went food shopping I got the ingredients and they had fun making it. It turned out really good. It was quite rich but still so good. It was all done in zippy bags with ice and salt in some outer zippy bags which you shake around for 15 mins and it turns into ice-cream.

Home-made icecream!

It has also rained quite heavily a few nights in a row but thankfully we haven't had any more issues with water leaks. In the morning we saw how much water there must have been - some of our shoes had been washed away into the adjoining space! There were also 'high tide' marks along the chair legs and van wheels, only a couple of centimetres high but enough to lift some of the most buoyant items. It did sound a lot coming down at once.

Spot the shoes! They washed all that way!

Inspecting the aftermath of the downpour!

Hard work in the office! :)

On the 20th we spent most of the afternoon down near the big pool so that we could upload some videos for the blog and do some business work using the free Wi-fi in the area. We were down there so long we made an evening of it and treated ourselves to some delicious pizzas. Pizza is one of the things we've missed while travelling through so many remote places - Spam, baked beans, and cooked meals have kept us going, but the occasional pizza is a treat we've been missing! The kids swam and swam and came out occasionally to do some school work (well Bek anyway) and then back in to cool off. It turned into quite a late night but we all enjoyed ourselves.

Most of us look to be excited by pizza.
Rumours have it that Bek DOES actually like pizza too!

Also while staying here we have had a few of these rather large flies come and bite us and draw blood. I'm pretty sure they are march flies or something like that but they give a horrible bite.

Darwin Museum and Art Gallery

We also visited Lee Point before heading to the Museum and Art Gallery which has quite a lot of information about Cyclone Tracy that hit Darwin in 1974 and just devastated the city and surrounds.

 

A 6 something metre saltwater croc taken from one of the rivers
near Darwin. It drowned while sedated during an attempt to relocate it.

This old railway signalling tower in the Museum
blew over in Cyclone Tracy!

While we've been stopped Greg took the opportunity to change over some of the bushes in the leaf springs. Some of them looked quite worn and would explain why it's been squeaking while driving along. The jack collapsed while doing this job, thankfully Greg had made sure he wasn't underneath it! So we bought a replacement!

 

As you can see these bushes have seen better days!
They're supposed to be solid all the way along

Since we have been swimming so much lately because of the heat, Bek and Matt have developed sore ears. I took them both to a local doctor in Darwin and found they needed some ear drops, particularly Matt because his ear was very sore. While we waited for the drops Jude wanted to try hopping in the trolley again after all these years. He couldn't stop laughing and neither could we. Way too big now. Hahaha!

-- Mim