Monday, April 19, 2010

Darwin Day 1 and 2

Day 1:
Finally in Darwin! For those that missed the news, I"ve come up to Darwin with a colleague for 4 weeks of our paediatric rotation. It will be grand!

Arrived at 2:05am Saturday morning, it was a nice cool 26 with about 70% humidity, it was wonderful!
Made it back to our holiday house (well, not ours...) and got shown to our rooms with nice big queen sized beds and airconditioning. We decided that it was time to crash (rightly so, it was about 3am...) and so we did.
Saturday morning (part 2) started with waking up to a beautiful day, mid-20s and of course, very high humidity. Our host took us out for a drive and tour of the area and the hospital, eventually leading to Casuarina, where we went shopping and picked up the essentials (chocolate and snacks...). Came back home and realised we forgot to grab some coldies! Silly us...

Another colleague of ours picked us up after his dance class (which he teaches, so talented...) for a late lunch on the wharf. Took the scenic route there and I spent my time trying to remember any of it from when I lived here. Since I left in 1995, this place has expanded so much! I had me some crocodile meat (delicious, very much a fusion of chicken and fish) which was great, my a colleague had camel burger (sounds meaty!) and our Darwinian colleague had a boring laksa... Hah.
Following the nice lunch, we went on for a big Darwinian tour and picked up a few more essentials (bike locks, beer) and came home to just kick back. I started/finished a book gifted by a funny accented colleague which was good, but kind of sad because of finishing a book I brought up in day 1... John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men, a wonderful book, well told story with amazing description and atmosphere.

Finished off the day with a nice light dinner and then some phone calls to family and friends.

Day two began early, as we decided to accompany the host to the Rapid Creek Markets. A nice busy market with fresh vegetables of the more asian variety, and a lot of food. We decided to pop by the Nightcliff Markets as well and found some more things (mostly food!) and then went to the Nightcliff jetty to eat up and relax.


We spent the remainder of the afternoon relaxing with drinks and reading.

The evening was spent at a beautiful place called the Darwin Ski Club (photos to come later!) where we relaxed (recurring theme here...) and enjoyed some cheap Coronas. We then went back to our colleagues place and had a delicious barramundi green curry.

Overall,the water is a beautiful colour here, a nice aqua/light blue which tempts you to go in, but unfortunately, there is way too many things here wanting to kill you. Swim at your own risk!

The weather is absolutely perfect at this time of year. Not too humid (well, probably too humid for some) and not too hot (again, mid-20s to low 30s, so possibly too hot...) and with a nice breeze most of the time. I love it! Since we"re just at the end of the wet season too, everything is wonderfully green and lush. We may see that all change before we leave though...


So thats all from me for now, things may be a little quiet from my end as the internet isn"t very accessible at the moment. Not that I need any excuse not to blog...

Ciao for now!

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