Darwin

It's now 7 days since we arrived in Darwin. Tipperary Marina is great and highly recommended by us. Very low key and all (incl. the lock gates operation) is handled by Keith who is an old Indonesia hand. So, we will be picking his brains over the next week or so. Tipperary is entirely surrounded at close quarters by low rise apartments - more like terrace houses really and there is a convenience store (very expensive), a restaurant and an excellent chandlery close by.
Darwin is booming due to the work being done on the local LNG terminal. Our friend, Neil is working as site manager for a national construction company and has given us all sorts of amazing statistics for this vibrant city. He lent us his car the other day and we visited the Indonesian Consulate to organise our Social Visas, Customs to enquire about duty free fuel and booze (!), and Coles to organise some much needed supplies. We had the Norwegians off "Frida" with us for the Consulate and Customs and we then drove to Fannie Bay to collect our rally packs from Sail Indonesia. Alas, although they know the total number of boats in the rally (over 80), they had run out of copies! Shades of what to expect in Indonesia. So we organised for them to deliver ours to us at Tipperary as it's not simple for us to get to Fannie Bay without a car. This duly happened.
We have cleaned the boat of all the salt accumulated over the last 6 weeks including hoisting and hosing the sails.
Last weekend we went to the Mindil Beach markets near the Darwin Sailing Club. Quite interesting but apart from 1 or 2 stalls pretty ho-hum. And the so-called ethnic food stalls were very ordinary. They were much better at Rusty's Market in Cairns.
The highlight of the last week was our teaming up with Frank and Morten of "Frida" when we decided to jointly hire a car and drive on Wednesday to Jabiru - about 260 kms. east from Darwin on the border of Arnhem Land and the Kakadu National Park. The attraction at Jabiru was a cruise on the East Alligator River where we saw some small crocodiles and were escorted by 2 Aboriginals who demonstrated various spears and gave eloquent explanations of various cultural issues. We landed on the river bank and climbed a rock for a view upstream with dramatic rock formations in the background. Quite spiritual when you realise that the Aboriginals have been living in this area for at least 60,000 years - and in fact this statistic is true of all of Australia. We stayed in a 2 bedroom cabin at Lakeview Park which was very comfortable and had dinner at a local social club. Eateries are thin on the ground in Jabiru.
Today we left to return to Darwin and about 70 kms short of Darwin stopped for a cruise on the Adelaide River to see the famous Jumping Crocodiles. For us this was the highlight of the last 2 days. The boat had 2 decks and we found that the best views were to be had from the lower deck. The crocodiles are well trained and you could see sometimes as many as 6 swimming towards the boat. Then the practice was to suspend meat bones from long poles out over the water and the crocs would come at least half out of the water to grab the prize. It was amazing to watch and well worth the cost of $25 per person. We were also treated to a close up view of a 6 metre (18') croc on a mud bank just under the bows. The water was a muddy brown and completely opaque and the crocs just appeared. There was no way of knowing where they were until they surfaced. Very sinister and chilling. Definitely NO swimming. Photos coming!!
Then back to Tipperary and preparing for getting the boat ready for the next stage - 2,500 miles to Johore in southern Peninsula Malaysia.
More soon.
Love from us..............
Jim and Jean xoxoxoxoxoxox

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