Visiting Attila in Darwin
30 June 2007
Winter has been cold and wet so far, so it looks like the drought of the last few years is finally finishing. We have been busy working and have just started looking for a place to buy to live in rather than continuing to rent the current apartment.
In April my remaining grandmother died quite suddenly. She had been seriously ill a year and a half previously but recovered and so we were lucky to have more time in her company with her quite well, still doing crosswords and taking an interest in politics. Here she is in the back garden of her house. The netting is protecting tomatoes.
Our other activity for the past two months was visiting Darwin on the Queen's Birthday weekend. We flew there and back on overnight flights which allowed us to have three full days. My friend Attila has been living in Darwin for some years and I was pleased to visit him at last. It seemed like the hotel we had booked was very full, because we were given the "wheelchair accessible" room. Our car booking was also not quite what we had expected and we ended up with a Hyundai Tucson which was very similar to the car we had driven in Tasmania.
This is the view from the balcony of Attila's and Timo's apartment overlooking the Timor Sea. It was the beginning of the dry season so it was fine and sunny during the day and cool at night. The locals complained about the terrible cold as it was 18C (64F) overnight.
We kept a very busy schedule for our three days. On Saturday we drove to the Adelaide river where we found that the old Activision game "Pitfall" was not entirely unrealistic in that crocodiles really can get quite a long way up out of the water. We visited the Parap Market where the diversity of the local population was shown in the food available. Darwin is closer to Indonesia than to other major Australian cities.
On Sunday we went to Kakadu National Park and took a flight over the Park. It gave good views of the Ranger uranium mine, the Jabiru settlement, a number of the waterfalls in the park and the Yellow Water billabong.
Kakadu is a poular tourist destination and there were several other light planes in the air over the park. It was a very long day as the bus ride to the National Park from Darwin is about three hours and we had been up until 2am the night before as Attila took us to a local club.
After the flight we saw Yellow Water up close from a boat. There were thousands of birds and dozens of crocodiles.
Attila took us to Litchfield National Park on Monday. There were waterholes there that were safe to swim in as they are cleared of crocodiles. The water was warm and clear and we had a picnic at Wangi Falls. Here Attila and I are at the base of the waterfall. There are more pictures from Darwin in an online album.
Now it's back to work for another two months of Winter before we get some relief by visiting Europe in August and September.
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In April my remaining grandmother died quite suddenly. She had been seriously ill a year and a half previously but recovered and so we were lucky to have more time in her company with her quite well, still doing crosswords and taking an interest in politics. Here she is in the back garden of her house. The netting is protecting tomatoes.
Our other activity for the past two months was visiting Darwin on the Queen's Birthday weekend. We flew there and back on overnight flights which allowed us to have three full days. My friend Attila has been living in Darwin for some years and I was pleased to visit him at last. It seemed like the hotel we had booked was very full, because we were given the "wheelchair accessible" room. Our car booking was also not quite what we had expected and we ended up with a Hyundai Tucson which was very similar to the car we had driven in Tasmania.
This is the view from the balcony of Attila's and Timo's apartment overlooking the Timor Sea. It was the beginning of the dry season so it was fine and sunny during the day and cool at night. The locals complained about the terrible cold as it was 18C (64F) overnight.
We kept a very busy schedule for our three days. On Saturday we drove to the Adelaide river where we found that the old Activision game "Pitfall" was not entirely unrealistic in that crocodiles really can get quite a long way up out of the water. We visited the Parap Market where the diversity of the local population was shown in the food available. Darwin is closer to Indonesia than to other major Australian cities.
On Sunday we went to Kakadu National Park and took a flight over the Park. It gave good views of the Ranger uranium mine, the Jabiru settlement, a number of the waterfalls in the park and the Yellow Water billabong.
Kakadu is a poular tourist destination and there were several other light planes in the air over the park. It was a very long day as the bus ride to the National Park from Darwin is about three hours and we had been up until 2am the night before as Attila took us to a local club.
After the flight we saw Yellow Water up close from a boat. There were thousands of birds and dozens of crocodiles.
Attila took us to Litchfield National Park on Monday. There were waterholes there that were safe to swim in as they are cleared of crocodiles. The water was warm and clear and we had a picnic at Wangi Falls. Here Attila and I are at the base of the waterfall. There are more pictures from Darwin in an online album.
Now it's back to work for another two months of Winter before we get some relief by visiting Europe in August and September.
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