Life is a beach...a Broadbeach

Out for our morning walk...

Out for an afternoon cache...

...at the Kokoda Memorial. 

Home for the next week and a half

A room (or two) with a view

Two and a half days driving....

...and we are still in Eltham!

Up the Moonbi Range

Almost dinner time and still a bit further to go to Armidale but the view off the Moonbi Range back towards Tamworth is just too good to pass up. 

Lunchtime in Dunedoo

Nothing better for lunch than an Apple Turnover filled with fresh cream. 

After a stop in Wellington to visit the Cathedral Cave, our morning run across the Central West of New South Wales brought us to Dunedoo for a lunch stop. 

Add another 25 minutes

Enough said!!!

Slight Delay

Here it is...departure time and I'm still in the Lounge...flight has been delayed 25 minutes...still, can't complain, the lunch time flight to Canberra is still here and won't be going until 8:00 tonight. 

On my way to Canberra

This isn't a holiday so it really doesn't belong in my Blog but I am just testing "blogging on the run" using an App on my new iPad. 

At the moment I am sitting in the Lounge at Melbourne Airport waiting to board my plane to Canberra. 

Darwin Goes Off With a Bang!

Today is Territory Day...or Cracker Day as the locals more often refer to it. Yes, the only place left in Australia where you can go and buy fireworks to let off yourself...and they do it really well!!! Pop-up shops all over the place are set up to sell fireworks...but not before 9:00am on Territory Day and they have to close by 9:00pm. Fireworks can be set off from no earlier than 6:00pm (although some people's clocks must have been a little fast...) and have to finish that night. Quite incredibly, they were all pretty good about it...maybe they are too fearful of loosing their fireworks that they really behave with them.

But more of Cracker Day later...we started the morning with a stroll around the Botanical Gardens. It is an amazing place and Darwin is really lucky to have it...some of the old trees were blown over by Cyclone Tracy but there were rescued and stood up in amongst the rest of the carnage and recovery. With the day warming up, we stayed in the Gardens for some lunch...and to finish off a multi-stage cache to bring up a total 1500 cache finds since I started nearly 3 years ago.

The late afternoon was spent back at the motel...split between the Pool and the Laundry...a rather pleasant way to get the washing done actually. For dinner we went downtown and found a pub where we could sit on the street and be entertained by the local's fireworks...well at least the high ones that went above the buildings. After dinner we walked back the our motel via Bicentennial Park which was an impromptu fireworks site with the locals sending "thousands of dollars" up into the sky in spectacular fashion...and rivaling some New Years Eve's efforts put on in Melbourne and Sydney!

Remembering Tracy

One of the different things about Darwin is that there is really nothing much that is very old...and you can put that mainly down to Cyclone Tracy. You can remember that it flatten Darwin but that really doesn't sink in until you look around and see that just about everything is relatively new. In the heart of the city, most of the "old" buildings are from the 1960's because they were strong enough to survive. This impression of Darwin was reinforced by our morning walk down to the wharfs and back through the waterfront development.

After lunch we went for a drive and visited the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. The centrepiece display for tourists is, of course, the story of Cyclone Tracy and the impact it had on Darwin. Standing in the "cyclone room", it was interesting to listen to what it sounded like...but I don't think they were playing it at full volume!

After the Museum, we drove out to East Point (to find a really old cache of course) before heading back to our motel. Dinner this evening was Thai but not before we went and finished another really old cache that we had started in the morning...a multiple step one that took us, rather conveniently, around the wharfs which is what we had intended to do anyway...promise!

A Lazy Day in Darwin

Just across the road from our motel is Bicentennial Park...where we went for a morning stroll...and, of course, finding the geocaches that are hidden along the way. After a pleasant morning in the sun we ventured into "downtown Darwin" for a little lunch before returning to our motel for a swim in the pool.

After a thoroughly lazy day, we wandered back into the centre of Darwin for dinner...pizza tonight. I have to say that thing that has surprised me about Darwin is just how small it is...smaller than Geelong I have just discovered. 

Our Top End Adventure Begins...

It was a typical grey and dreary Winter's day in Melbourne as we made our way out to Tullamarine Airport for out flight to Darwin. It had taken all the points we had amassed over several years but we were flying Business Class...very pleasant if you can manage it...and really the only way to make a four hour flight.

Just after 2:00pm we took off from Melbourne and climbed through the clouds to leave the winter gloom behind. About half way through our flight we passed by Lake Eyre...quite impressive from 37,000 feet...and landed in Darwin in time for a bright yellow sunset.

We picked up our car for the next 13 days...an almost new Toyota Corolla...and headed into Darwin to the Palm City Resort where we are staying for the next few days. After dropping our bags in our room it was back in the car and off to the Mindil Beach Sunset Market...a pleasant way to end the day!