Darwin seems to be on this virtually never ending highway which eventually takes you into the harbour and CBD. We wanted to see the Big Boxing Croc in Humpty Doo on the way in but after touring its main drag and not finding it gave up and continued our journey to Howard Springs – just outside of Darwin and where we’d booked a caravan site. Finishing our trek into the city we made our way to the wave pool at the wharf precinct for a cooling off and to let off some energy. It’s a beautiful little complex on the foreshore and produces waves you can actually boogie board down and cruise into the shallows. We’d paid $15 in Coober Pedy for a family visit to a rather basic pool with a few pool toys, here it was $12 for an amazing pool complete with boogie boards and inner tubes with which to enjoy the waves. For dinner and entertainment we ventured to the Mindil Beach Night Markets which occur every Thursday and Sunday. It was absolutely packed! From your usual trinket, t-shirt and odd junk stalls, there was also ample multi-cultural food booths, fire-throwers, Michael Jackson dancing wannabees, amazing didgeridoo/percussion bands, street entertainers and your mandatory overpriced jumping castle amusement section. It was an experience to say the least and we enjoyed some wonderful South Australia Oysters, brick-oven pizza and Lebanese Chicken wraps.
Friday came with an early start to organize ourselves for the day and head back into Darwin. Piper and Cole had an appointment at the Travel Clinic to get some jabs for our Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos trip. After some well timed doses of chocolate and the occasional firmly held limb, Piper managed to get through all four of her vaccines but not without a struggle. Cole braved to the task and with some deep breaths and a mouthful of Freddy Frog got through his two. For the afternoon we ventured to an inner city Crocodile Park called the Crocosaurus Cove where you could feed the juvenile crocs with fishing lines, swim adjacent their pen, divided only by some plexi-glass, and watch some courageous tourists jump into the ‘Cage of Death’ – a plexi-glass enclosure they lower into the bigger croc pens. The crocs were a bit bored of this exercise it seemed as no matter what the occupants of the cage did, the crocs simply wouldn’t cooperate with a snarl or leap. The park also had a fish and reptile enclosure so we were able to watch some feeding of the massive barramundis, the archer fish (and witness their incredible ability to spit), a sword fish and some rays. In the reptile enclosure we all had a go handling the olive python, bearded dragon lizard and blue-tongued skink. It was probably the best crocodile park we’ve been to as it wasn’t just about getting the big crocs to jump or attack and had a bunch of other exhibits for us to see and enjoy. We almost had to drag the kids away they were enjoying it so much. We wandered the city a bit and read about the bombing of Darwin back in 1942 – it would have been a scary time as they were caught unaware and had 188 Japanese Zero fighters bearing down on them, bombing any and everything in sight. After the first wave retreated a second bunch of 54 planes came in to finish the job. There were only 5 American Spitfires to try to defend the area! We headed home with schoolwork to complete and dinner to have, crashing like a tonne of bricks again after a muggy, busy day.
We’ve got but one more day here and then will trek southwards again – aiming for Mataranka for our first stop to enjoy the thermal springs located there. We’re hoping it will get cooler as we make our way south so we can start using our covers at night again. Today we’re off to the museum, some fish feeding and hopefully some water-slides – should be a buzz!
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