Good news and bad news

The part for the car was in Melbourne thank goodness and has been dispatched, however it wont arrive here until late today or tomorrow but they should be fitting it on Monday Yay. Apparently then $1900+ does include fitting and delivery so we might be able to have a cup of coffee with the change from 2k.

Now that we know how long it will take, we hired a car for the few days, four days in a caravan park, is a long time to spend with no wheels.

Picked up the car yesterday and then picked up the GPS from our car in the yard, saving about $8-10 a day and set off for the mall for a coffee.

Darwin mall was pretty quiet, there was this nice fountain but it didnt go all the time.

Many of the shops were similar to home.

Getting back to the car, there was a ticket on the windscreen, what the?

It was a parking ticket costing $40. We had parked in a spot that required a ticket to be bought and displayed. The car is quite low to the ground and we pulled into the spot and looked at the sign which we saw to read 2 hours no charge. We had made sure that we were back within the time and were surprised at the ticket. On more in depth reading of the sign, under the 2 hours no charge, was the word Sat.

Damn, it was not Saturday. The top of the sign said Pay-Display but from the car we couldnt see that.

Oh dear the perils of parking in an unfamiliar city. Silly us I guess for thinking a city would have free parking.

Our savings of using our own GPS was just swallowed up in a parking fine.

Darwin

Finally we made it into Darwin. I first came to Darwin in 1994, just for a long weekend. Warren was paying a visit to units and he was to fly back on the Friday but I arranged to get two flex days and met him here to have Friday to Monday. he had been a couple of times with work but I hadnt.

 Coming from Canberra where it was blowing a gale and freezing, it was quite a shock to get out at Darwin airport and be met, only only by Warren but heat! I couldnt believe how hot and humid it was. He took me to the mall and I kept going into shops to get cool.

We drove to Linchfield National park and wandered around the wildlife animal park and then back to have dinner with an old school friend of Warren's and his wife. Dinner was good and I tried lots of different meats, camel, deer, crocodile and emu. At the restaurant patrons choose their meats and then took them to the chefs to cook.The chefs then threw the meat altogether on a hot plate and cooked it so didn't know what meat was what.

The next morning I was sick, not from the dinner but a raging cold had got to me, I was running a temp, coughing and wheezing and slept on and off all day. Still not that good the following morning, Monday, but had to catch a plane home. So my memories of Darwin are not great and I have always wanted to come back and see it properly.

Darwin is still not being kind to me. We arrived mid day Friday and set up. Saturday Warren wanted to get a hair cut so we went to a shopping centre.  He couldnt get an appointment for two hours, it wasnt far so we got some groceries and drove back. The car didnt seem to want to change gears. Warren returned to the shopping centre and again the car got stuck in second gear. Dealership was open until one pm so booked it in, the earlier possible time which was Tuesday, yesterday.

News on the car, we need a new gear thingy, its a sensor apparently. Not one available here in Darwin. Best scenerio is one from Melbourne which will take 3 to 4 days to get here, worst scenario is they will have to order one from the states which could be a three to four week turnaround. Cost is about $1900, not sure if that is fitted on not. Should hear from them today where a new thingy can be located, then we will decided our next move.

Caravan parks

These come in difference sizes and shapes but I think we have found the best park in Katherine!

It is called the shady lane and for good reason there were lots of shade trees and some low garden beds to seperate sites from each other.

We had a very long site so we put the van back as far as it could go, no-one was behind us in the time we were there and the car could be parked in front of the van straight in, plenty of room for the annex.

Sheri and co were on the next site and theirs was more square than us as they were on a corner.

The best part was the toilets and shower, oh my goodness, white tiles on the walls and mushroom tiles on the floor with muted lighting set in the walls, plenty of room in both and top of the range toilets, the higher one with the soft self closing lids. It was always clean but I never experienced them closed.

This tree was on the way out of the park. It was about 5 kms out of town, no codes or keys to get in and out of the park or the amenities. As it is a Top Tourist park which we are a member of, the cost each night was $39. 

Katherine Museum

After a long drive seven hours in the car, we didn't do much in Katherine. The canoeing through the gorge was a no go due to low water levels.

Coming back from town, one afternoon Warren said he would like to go to the museum, it was on the way to the caravan park. My thought "Not another bl......museum! then I thought maybe I could drop him and pick him up after" Then I thought that I should go with him if that what he wants to do..

Again it was a different museum to many that we have visited and thank goodness the buildings were air coned.

First building housed WW1 and 2 things but it was more about how the war affected Katherine and what happened there. My Dad was stationed not far from Katherine and he did go to Katherine and Darwin to pick up or deliver vehicles so that was interesting to me. They had a book that was for visitors to the museum to write about their family members who may have been in the area.

The next building that we went to, held a plane that had belonged to a doctor who flew it to administer to patients in the war and after. The local primary school is named after him. Clyde Felton, I had not hard of him before, he bought three planes altogether, the second one being called IOU as apparently he had to borrow a lot of money to replace the first one which he crashed.

There were also a lot of stories about notable people from the area and stories from the stolen generation.These were in written form around the sides of the building with photos of the people. Its rare to see and hear about the kids from the stolen generation.  It was well worth a look. There were  couple of other buildings one on the telegraph coming to the Centre and we had watched a doco on the floods of Katherine in 1997. We passed the bridge on the way to Darwin and it was very high above the river, 18 metres and the waters were well over it. many people lost everything but thankfully there were only three deaths.

Molly (Ian Meldrum)

As there was no TV in Lake Argyle we bought some DVDs to watch. One was Molly. This was done as a telemovie and was shown on TV earlier in the year while we were travelling.

Molly being to Aussie Icon to Australian music industry and I guess he was a part of many people our age and younger, lives, we bought a copy to watch.

We has seen some some on the shorts when it was being advertised.

Well, what a show it was!

Molly ended up as the front person for Count Down a music show that went for thirteen years on the ABC of all places. He interviewed many famous musicians from here and overseas, everyone seemed to know Molly. Even interviewed Prince Charles when he came to Australia, I think Charlie wanted to express that it was good for the young people to have such a show.

It was a warts and all, showing the drug, drink and party scenes as well as the hard work that was required to put the show on. ABC bosses were not convinced that it was the right thing to do even though the ratings were sky high.

Molly was played by a young actor, well he seems young as we first saw him in pizza ads and then tyre ads. He really had only done bit parts before but he did a fantastic job and it did seem like he was Molly.

Molly had had a serious fall three or four years, he fell off a ladder while putting up Christmas decorations! It was set in the hospital bed and he was remembering his life.

We found out about why he ended up wearing a hat but it was not revealed while everyone called him Molly.

Durack House Museum

Bit of a history lesson here. back in 1800's the Durack family came out from Ireland got into cattle and then decided to take up land in Northern Western Australia. They drove 7,500 cattle from the south west corner of Queensland up and across the top end. They thought it would take six months, it actually took them two and a half years and they arrive with only half the cattle.

Coming back from Wolfe Creek Crater we had to stop/slow to go through a mob of cattle that were being moved along the road, there were 500 in that lot and they took up a lot of area, I couldn't imagine seeing fourteen times that many.

Anyway they finally made it and operated as a cattle station for many years. Drought flood and heat all made a difference and one of the sons Kimberley suggested and proved to the current Government that if dams were put in place then the water could used to grow crops in the Kununurra area. (this is now Lake Argyle)

The dam wall was built but it did mean that the homestead was in the valley that was dammed. The homestead was taken apart stone by stone and moved then reconstructed in its present location. The rest of the buildings are at the bottom of the lake.

The dam holds between 18 and 76 times as much water as the Sydney harbour which is a massive amount of water. Rice and vegetables are grown as there is ample water to do so rather than rushing out to sea.

I didnt expect to be going to see it and so I didnt have my camera but it was a very impressive building and not cluttered with too much stuff.

Kelly's Knob

We went shopping into Kununurra with Sheridan but first she wanted to show us some spots that they have found when they were there earlier.

She told me that I had to climb a little. I dont particularly like stairs or rock climbing!

That was where we were headed after going up a few steps (with a rail)

It was nice to get in the shade of the tree.

Stepping around further was the overview of the township which was flat and the rocks just seemed to come out of nowhere.Very pretty.