Top End tales #7

G’day all,
It’s the Thursday before Good Friday here & I’m looking forward to a holiday tomorrow. Eight of us are heading over to Kakadu tomorra for 2 nights & then we’ll head down the track to Katherine for another night. It’s been really exciting having our first visitors from Melbourne (& Brisbane) arrive this week. The frogs have given them a great welcome.

So Life in the Top End has been fairly amazing since the last tales. We drove out to Marrara footy ground one stormy night in February to see Collingwood play (badly). That was a terrific occasion up here, with full page wrap-arounds in the paper and lots of hoop-la. And then West Coast thrashed the Woods and that was that.

CJ & I scooted down to Katherine to check it out in early March. At that time the place was sweltering & the tour operators were bemoaning a river that was both too high (to allow safe canoeing) and too low (to allow use of a jet boat on the gorge). We foolishly set off for an 8km walk along the rocky gorge country on a sunny afternoon that had a maximum temperature of 45 degrees. The walk was kinda good, kinda oppressive, but getting out among the gorge was good fun. Went swimming at Edith Falls the next day & had a great Top End weekend (escarpment, gushing waterfall, pandanus palms).

And that next week, we at work all looked a bit apprehensively at the weather charts as a tropical cyclone formed in the Gulf, crossed over to the coral sea, intensified and then started heading back towards the Queensland coast on the Thursday. Those in the know were predicting that she (Ingrid) would weaken over Cape York, intensify again in the warm waters of the Gulf and then bounce along the Top End coast and threaten Darwin. And what do you know? That’s exactly what happened. So Darwin was on FULL CYCLONE ALERT for a couple of days there. Extremely stern warning messages were broadcast every hour on ABC radio and TV, advising people to formulate an evacuation plan. We gathered our valuable papers, packed emergency supplies of water and food and brought all loose things indoors (bikes, table & chairs). It was an exciting and nerve racking time.

The supermarkets were chockers on the Sunday with people buying up supplies and likewise the petrol stations. It was like the town was preparing for The End Of The World. The weather really cooled off and the sky was eerily still and quiet. And then the wind cranked up. All over town people had taped up their windows and bunkered down for a night without sleep.

Cath & I were prepared to drive to a cyclone shelter and we didn’t sleep all that well on the Sunday night. I rose to check the Bureau of Meteorology warning service a few times during the night to make sure Ingrid hadn’t dropped south from her expected course. Luckily (for us), she carried on her expected course and carved up the Tiwi Islands instead of Darwin. About a week afterwards she was still dumping extreme amounts of rain over the Top End. I’d say the Katherine River would be quite a bit higher by now.

The week following the cyclone was the best week of weather we’ve had, with cool days and cool nights and a great sprinkling of rain. And Cath & I each sat job interviews with the idea of lining up something even better than what we’ve each got now. Pretty confident.

Since the cyclone we’ve had a weekend in Melbourne & now a big crew is staying with us in Darwin. We slept 7 in the 2-bedroom flat last night. Apparently the odd road around Kakadu is closed following Ingrid, but we’re heading off there tomorrow anyway.

Hope you enjoy a break & I’ll catch you later.

-top end

Top End tales #6

G’day all,

This is a quick hello. Life continues to be both challenging and grand up here.

They don’t have Big M in Darwin but you’ve never seen so many people walking around drinking Iced-Coffee milk. We missed out on winning a car (enter by sending in tokens from the sides of iced coffee milk cartons; we collected lots of tokens) and now I think I’m addicted to the stuff.

The climate varies each year in the Top End, they say. Some years, years of the Big Wet, mind-bogglingly torrential rains fall without relent for weeks at a time. In other years, the wet season goes AWOL and is replaced with a pale imitation (the Little Wet?). In years of the Little Wet, storms that break the insufferable humidity are few and far between and are celebrated with some gusto on arrival. As time marches on, it seems that we’re experiencing a year of the Little Wet. The rains simply haven’t come to town (yet).

Since the last Top End Tales, CJ & I spent 10 days in Victoria/ Melbourne, attending weddings and catching up with quite a few people. It was strange to visit Melbourne for a holiday. People up here were saying: "Oh Melbourne – you’re going to love it. It stays light until late at night down there, the tennis is on..." Never really considered it a holiday destination, but they were right.

Soon after we returned to Darwin CJ & I were nearly washed away by the largest storm of the season. The car was parked in an open car park about 30 metres dash away, through the tropical rain, and by the time we made it inside, our clothes were so wet we might as well have jumped in a bath fully clothed. The roads were all flooded that night, too. I guess living with this season’s rain is like fighting Aussie Joe Bugner – it doesn’t hit often, but when it does hit, it hits
HARD.

We’ve mainly been taking it easy, though. Catching up with Darwin mates is a developing idea; we’ve enjoyed some Sunday arvo beers at Simon’s place, a great
dinner with some people in Nightcliff and a Saturday morning fishing/ champagne breakfast extravaganza on the cliff tops of Nightcliff with CJ’s work crew (where we each landed our first NT fish).

I’ve started a creative writing course. Bit of fun. And played some tennis with a few guys from work. Been to Parliament House and met my first minister (Minister for Environment & Heritage) which was nice in this election year. The NT election needs to be called before October. The Greens are co-ordinating an effort up here, which really translates to about 5 people doing a lot of work. So far I’ve dodged it but CJ is starting to roll her sleeves up.

We’ve been cruising around some tracks over the past 2 weekends, checking out some wetlands and finding that despite the lack of rain in Darwin itself, other parts of the Top End have been getting a soaking sufficient to force road closures. Been to Fogg Dam Conservation reserve (hot, lots of mozzies, great walk thru wetlands and monsoon paperbark forest) and Douglas/Daly Hot springs (road closed, will let you know some time after April).

Checked out the Semi Finals of the Darwin Raw Comedy stand-up competition on Saturday night. Suffice to say that if I was a winner from one of the other states, destined to meet my NT rival in competition during the Comedy Festival in Melbourne, I would be quietly confident.

This week CJ started a new job; researching the Health & Wellbeing of Territory Women; a 6-month position. And we’ve picked up tickets to see Collingwood play West Coast on Saturday night (b.y.o. chair!!). Carna Woods.

So the lifestyle remains great – no traffic, goannas on the road – and we’re looking forward to the coming Dry season and some more Top End Adventures. Hope all is well for you & yours.
Ciao, top end tom & kakadu cath.

Top End tales #5

G’day from the wet Top End.

You might have noticed from the previous updates that we had been struggling with the heat... Well that’s all a distant memory now, as the monsoon has broken. The rain arrived in earnest around about Christmas. The Wet Season is heavenly. Since the breaking of the rains all the locals have rated the 2004 "build-up" one of the toughest in memory. Phew.

We were lucky enough to witness the breaking of the monsoon over in Jabiru, the town mysteriously established within the boundaries of Kakadu (Gagudju) National Park. The town was built to service workers in the even more extraordinarily placed uranium mines in 1982. Now it’s a proud little place, as can be guessed by the dozen or so signs describing yet another "tidy town" victory (or nomination) that greet cars on the road in. CJ & I had a room just forward of the right hind leg at the giant crocodile resort. We arrived around lunchtime on Chrissy day and took part in a gluttonous buffet feast in honour of the festive season.
And then the rains came.
Whoah.

In between torrential downpours we saw quite a bit of the Park. All of the waterways were flowing (as distinct from October), and many new crocodile warning signs had been erected. Had a terrific few days over there; will tell you about it next time we see you, otherwise photos are at the usual spot.

Since the new year CJ & I have each been working in Darwin town so we’ve been back on the bikes together of a morning. CJ continues at Dept of Health & Community Services (the big boss is fighting in her corner). And I’ve started at the NT Office of Environment & Heritage, assessing a large Environmental Impact Statement, on a 4 month contract.

The past couple of Friday nights have been out & about with work mates at a couple of brilliant pubs/clubs around here. Last week we met up with CJ’s crew at the Trailer Boat Club. This is a very relaxed club tucked into the beach at Fannie Bay where you can grab a scotch fillet large enough to feed a small army, wash it down with schooners of your favourite ale, and do it all while sitting at a plastic table on the lawn as the sun sinks spectacularly behind palm trees over Beagle Gulf and the Cox Peninsula. And this week we checked into the Nightcliff pub – the Beachside Hotel – where the pub & front beer garden are perched right on Nightcliff beach (so you see the pub is very thoughtfully named). Today I was told that the pub has recently undergone yuppification to the extent that you can no longer turn up in muddy cycling gear & expect to gain entry to the beer garden. The front of the pub certainly looked flash. But the renovations have stalled half way through, as when you head out the back you are transported into a room full of chesty bonds, cigarette smoke, trots on the TV and fluorescent lighting. The REAL Beachside Hotel lives on.

Not too many croc stories to regale you with this time. A couple of guys were out surfing off Nightcliff when they happened across a 3m salty about 2 weeks ago. And a little fella (1m) was found in a suburban swimming pool last week. No cause for alarm. Our loveable frogs have gone missing since the monsoon arrived; must have enough water elsewhere, I guess. We fished another one out of the loo just before Christmas & took his photo for later identification. They can’t have gone too far, though, as some nights their croaking fills the air in much the same way as cicada calls down south. Other wildlife news: mosquito population seems to have jumped by a factor of 120.

This week we’ll switch the old Vic car rego across to the NT system. With so many transient people blowing through the Top End, they are fairly serious about their registration policy, which says that new comers must have switched to NT rego within 3 months of taking up residence. The carrot of the deal is that we get to sport some exotic NT plates. The stick of the deal is a lazy $2000 fine if you fail to make the switch. Like I said, they take it seriously up here.

That’s it for now. The monsoon is here and it is wonderful. So far my leather sandals are the only items to have been consumed by mould, but we’ve been told to expect anything & everything in our house to cop the same fate at some stage (photo at the www site).

Hope all is well for you wherever you are. Thanks for the news that filters up here from time to time – it is always very well received.
Our movements are:
Melbourne Fr21 Jan
Gippsland Sa22 to Mo24/Tu25 Jan
Melbourne We26 to Mo31 Jan
Darwin Mo31 Jan to at least October 2005 (with another trip back to Melb).

ciao,
Top end tom & kakadu cath

Top End tales #4

G’day and Merry Christmas from the Top End.

Well, Christmas decorations festoon the streets of central Darwin the same way I guess they do in Melbourne and other places. Up here, though, the old Santas you see around the place are doing it tough. We saw a Santa last week at the end of our street. He was a young buck involved in a photographic shoot on the Fannie Bay cliff top. He was posing on a banana lounge and nursing an NT stubby in one hand (the product being advertised) and a 1.5m croc in the other. Ha.

This Christmas marks 30 years since Cyclone Tracy came to town. Sixty-odd people died as she blew through town at 3am on Christmas morning. On Christmas Eve Darwin was a town of 12,000 houses, the next day 9,000 of them had been wiped out. Some commemorations have been held but a lot pf people don’t agree with the occasion being marked. Locals have many stories about Tracy and the aftermath. One that was told in the NT News explained that: "we should have known a cyclone was coming that year – the mangoes had long stems." Of course. Fingers crossed that we don’t get a
first-hand account of a cyclone, anyway. They seem to have a return period here of 35-40 years (cyclones to largely destroy Darwin arrived in 1897, 1937 and 1974), so maybe we’ll be alright this year. We haven’t seen too many long stems on the mangoes, anyway.

We’re told the weather up here will soon improve. Each day so far has been marginally more unbearable than the last. They say that Christmas Day normally marks the worst of the conditions; after which the intense thunder & lightning storms drop off and torrential rain kicks in. We’ll see. On Friday afternoon there was a splendiferous lightning and thunderstorm that cut power to the whole city for ~3-4 hours. Not even the traffic lights were working during the afternoon peak. At CJ’s work, when the blackout hit (affecting lights, computers & everything else) they cracked a bottle of champagne to mark the early end to the working week. But conditions on Friday evening, in the lee of the storm were glorious. Hopefully a portent of things to come.

CJ & I are off to Kakadu (Gagadju) for Christmas Day this year. We’ll be staying in the town of Jabiru - you might remember a flash resort there built in the
shape of a crocodile? So we might see Daryl Somers this Christmas... you never, never know. The maximum temperature down there at Jabiru is routinely 42oC so we’ll be flat out swimming and watching the lop-sided cricket I expect. Over the short break we’re hoping to get down to Katherine for a play in the gorge as well.

CJ is rapidly making herself a critical resource at the Department of Health & Community Services. Her contract was renewed the other day and now extends through to April. And I’ve just accepted a 4 month contract with the Office of Environment & Heritage (NT) as an Environmental Assessment Officer. So we’re both set up until mid-April.

Otherwise, exploration of our northern bounds continues, as we follow in the steps of Leichardt and Stuart most weekends. If Ludwig Leichardt had have stumbled across the swimming holes and plunge pools that we did in Litchfield National Park, it wouldn’t surprise me that he never bothered again with European culture. Beautiful rocky waterfalls off the escarpment, just 90 minutes down the track.

We’ve taken to the sea recently, as well, with a ferry trip across the heads to Mandorah, a settlement on the other side of the harbour. Apparently there are 250
people living in Mandorah. It’s a 20 minute ferry ride across the heads, or a 2.5 hour drive around the harbour, from Darwin. We didn’t end up seeing the town, as the first thing you see on disembarking the ferry is a sprawling pub on the beach front that is open to the weather & features a huge swimming pool overlooking the harbour. At least we explored the Barramundi on the menu and also the pool (comprehensively). As always, photos of things along the way are posted at
http://worldsafaridave.50megs.com

When we’re too shagged to explore, there’s always Darwin. Or the Nightcliff pool – a little gem just discovered – 50m pool with swimming lanes perched on the rocky foreshore overlooking the Beagle Gulf & Timor Sea.

The miracle of air-conditioning keeps us smiling up here – without it I’m sure CJ would have gone totally troppo (only a mild dose to report thus far), and I would have blown several fuses. The "build-up" really is as tough as people say. It’s been an eye-opener. We’ve been swimming each night in our pool, and each night we meet at least one of our friendly green tree frogs loitering around the staircase. Happily, CJ has initiated a bonding exercise with our "friends," who are now lovingly patted on sight.

That’ll do. Merry Christmas to all in the south and elsewhere ‘round the globe. You’re often in our thoughts. Hope you enjoy a safe holiday & relaxing break. To clear up some confusion from last correspondence, CJ & I will be living up here til at least October 2005; our next trip to Melbourne will be in late January.
And as the Weddo’s sing: Hope that you get what you ask for; hope you ask for what you want."

Ciao belli, Top End Tom & Kakadu Cath.

Top End tales #3

G’day there.
It’s a hot & steamy time up here in the land of afternoon monsoon storms, lizards scuttling along the walls and breakfast on the balcony.

Cath reckons that the little geckos who regularly race across the walls here look like fridge magnets. I think she’s right. These agile fridge magnets seem to be guarding our flat, as they scatter all over the outside walls whenever we arrive home. In the main they have done a fine job, though a couple of nights ago I ventured out into the land of the David Attenborough documentary (outside our door step) to find a green tree frog trying to pick the lock on my bike. You can’t relax for a moment up here.

My last report might have mentioned Darwin heat. Well, with the benefit of hindsight it shouldn’t have. Heat is a concept that we re-learn every day, as each day is more oppressive than the last. (A warning for the squeamish – tune out here and re-join at the end of the paragraph). Writing this, for instance, I am inside the loungeroom and it is 7:24pm. Every door is open. Every louvre window is open. Both ceiling fans are spinning like mad. The slight zephyr of breeze that passes my bare skin (it’s OK, I’m wearing shorts) tries to take away the sweat but my cooling mechanism is not quite up to it. Sweat beads in clumps on my forearms here and gathers in capillaries before joining into a 5th order stream network. The ABC news
reports 84% relative humidity today at 9am, maximum temp 34°C.

CJ is at her weekly drawing course right now. She’ll tell you she can’t draw at all (but I’ll tell you something different). If you ever need an apple sketched in grey-lead pencil, I know someone. At work CJ’s been working on many different projects with the Department of Health & Community Services, with one field trip to Katherine the other day. The policy position she’s got looks like being very interesting.

I’ve got 2 weeks left with the Water Resources group at NT Gov. For the past 2 weeks or so I’ve been involved (as a field sampler) in the eradication of a weed from the Darwin River. Crikey, has this been an eye-opener. The quick version is that an exotic aquarium plant was dumped in the Darwin River and has colonized a 10km section downstream of the town dam. If it spreads it could be disastrous for NT rivers. So a temporary dam wall was built across the river to contain the affected section, and an alarming pesticide poison 2,4-D, was applied to the river. This will hopefully kill the weed (and everything else) in the river soon, and the dead section of river will be rejuvenated before being released to the harbour. The whole thing is much more complicated, but I’ve been out on the Darwin River taking water samples for the past fortnight.

Imagine being hotter than if you’d done something hot on the hottest day you can ever imagine. Sitting in a canoe or a little tinny with the sun beating down... The Darwin rural area is routinely ~42°C. I know how an egg feels as it is cracked above a frying pan. At one of the places where we launch our boat, there’s a soberly placed steel crocodile trap, complete with bait (rotting chicken carcass), as a salty has been seen in the area; posing a threat to nearby landowners. As I thrust my gloved left hand repeatedly into the murky river water to collect water samples, I need to believe the words of my local partner: “You wouldn’t catch me doing this at dawn or dusk, but crocs understand that the middle of the day is OUR time on the river.” Right.

We had a top weekend in Melbourne, last; great to catch up with news and events. The stand-out highlight being the wedding of Jeff and Kirsten. A wonderfully picturesque ceremony in the grandstand of the Brunswick Street Oval. In Melbourne we relished the touch of a soft cool breeze. And we each turned the hot tap of the shower for the first time since September. Being back after an absence of a couple of months brought a few things into focus: there are too many cars on the roads of Melbourne. Brunswick Street on Friday night was outrageous. The mobile phone is
King. All hail the King. And all the grass is green. It was all yellowy brown when we left. And the back streets of Richmond haven’t become any easier to navigate.

CJ is riding to work most days up here – a superhuman feat. Full of good intentions, my latest effort ended with a puncture 7km from home and an ignominious hour-long run/ shuffle/ sweaty walk. Up here Car is King. (Or rather 4x4 ute is King; car is Weedy Prince).

We’re staying in Darwin now until late January. Anyone who’s in the neighbourhood, let us know. We had dinner with Brad Williams and Valerie last week, which was amazing in Darwin, and we also has a feed with Jenny & Richard a few weeks before that. Thanks for the messages from down south and all over. They are very well received. Sorry we were unable to catch more people on the weekend just gone; I hope you’re all well.

Ciao belli,
Top End Tom & Kakadu Cath.

Top End tales #2

The humidity builds mercilessly here. By 8.00am the air is thick and warm. Heroically, I had aimed to regularly ride my bike the gruelling 20km to work (at least every 2nd day), but to my eternal relief, the defence mechanism of the human body has kicked in and chronic knee soreness has developed to the point where I now need to drive to work in an air-conditioned car. It’s a shame. (CJ, on the other hand, rides her bike to Town most days). It’s tough enough walking to the office from the car park; a sheen of sweat soon covers the forearms as the daily roast begins. Human ingenuity, however, allows us to sidestep this inconvenience through the miracle of air-conditioning. From Monday to Friday, the hottest hours of the day
are spent in air-conditioned climate-controlled office Anywhere-Land. Inside these offices you really could be anywhere on Earth. Vertical blinds in a non-threatening shade of grey match the desk tops and even the ceiling panels. The only give-aways up here are the endless maps of the NT and posters of local Landcare projects covering the walls. But when clock-off arrives at 4.21pm and you walk out those sliding doors, the heat hits you between the eyes like a Mack truck. It’s a beautiful feeling.

Now preparations are beginning for the imminent cyclone season. There was a cyclone preparation lift-out guide in last Monday’s paper and the local council has sent some handy mail on this foreign subject. It’s the northern equivalent of the seasonal bushfire warnings down south, I guess. We’re all under orders to repair the roof, clear old branches from trees, remove or chain down any large objects outside the house, organise a cyclone emergency kit (torches, tins of food, etc) and locate our nearest community meeting point. Sounds serious. There was a map of Darwin in the paper showing which areas are most at risk of flooding from the storm surges that accompany a cyclone; judging by that map, it’s a good thing we’re on the first floor of our building.

We had one good dump of rain which washed out the Thursday night markets at Mindil Beach a while ago. But that’s been it. A week ago we headed down to Kakadu to get the lay of the land in "end of Dry Season" conditions. It was 40 degrees in the shade. The humidity wasn’t too bad – more of a baking heat. The sweat glands are getting a workout. We checked out the Kakadu (or Gagadju – that’s the name of the local aboriginal group and should really be the name of the Park except that it morphed in the style of Chinese whispers) Escarpment and rolled down to the Yellow Water area & Cooinda. We hopped a tour boat & toured around the wetlands of the Jim Jim Creek and South Alligator River for a couple of hours, finishing with a typical NT sunset on the water. The boat trip was an eye-opener for the amount of wildlife we were surrounded by but couldn’t really see until shown. By the end of the tour, though, we were in tune with nature & spotting animals every which way. And the crocs were imposing beasts. Glad to have met a few in person now and we all seem to have a healthy respect for each other.

We camped out & the next day visited & photographed a few dry river beds. The West Alligator River was completely dry. The only risk of injury via animal attack was from a wild pig scruffing around the river bed rather than from any crocs. We’re hoping to get a series of photos of those river beds over the changing of the seasons.

Life is beautiful.

The Mindil Beach market wound up for the year last Thursday night, as all the markets go into Wet Season recess. Half of Darwin was milling around the stalls, eating Asian delights on the beach and checking out music, fairground-style rides and a fireworks spectacular. CJ & I hopped on our bikes & rolled from home to the markets along the beachfront. Not bad. And I’m now the proud owner of a Big Old NT Farmer–style leather Hat, which should see me fit in like a local in most redneck regions of Australia.

The market season ended with impeccable timing; for the past 3 nights we’ve had alarming lightning activity filling the skies. In the NT News they reckon the Top End had 1036 strikes on Friday night alone. The power dropped out on Friday night and the wind really started to whip around our Fannie Bay fortress. Reading that cyclone guide has become a more urgent matter.

Yesterday we headed down to Nightcliff Oval for some Round 4 NTFL footy action as the Mighty Nightcliff Tigers faced off with the Darwin Buffaloes. A 4pm start meant that the sting of the day was behind us, but we made sure to set up our camp chairs in the shade of an exotic flowering tree. Nightcliff got the jump on Darwin and were never in danger. Coach Magic McLean would have been rapt with the boys, who closed it out 28.12.180 to 12.5.77. Former Geelong, Adelaide and Tommy Sherrins opportunist, Ronnie Burns, now sporting a hairstyle reminiscent of Tarzan the legend Greystoke, played an explosive game changing on the ball out of the forward flank & snaring a couple of goals. The ball handling of these guys is incredible and the skills displayed at half time by a group of kids playing kick-to-kick won them 3 Brownlow votes from this umpire.

So life in the Top End rolls on. CJ is 3 weeks into a Learning to draw course, I'm checking out the local Thursday night soccer scene, and again there's a croc story on the front page of the NT News ("Teen escapes from croc's jaws - saltie drags youth under water").

We’re back in Melbourne soon for J&K’s wedding.
Happy punting wherever you are.
Til next time, adios.
darwin dave.

Top End tales #1

G’day all,

Another hot &humid day here in Darwin where Catherine &I arrived last Sunday following an epic roadtrip (details to follow). We’ve been busy beavers this week: house hunting Monday, moving into a flat on Tuesday & I started work on Wednesday. So this is a quick g’day, with the advice that you’ll be hearing more soon. For now, a couple of highlights from the past 2 weeks:
- eating nutri-grain out of enamel mugs on the banks of the Mighty Murray at Renmark;
- having rains of Biblical magnitude dump on us the night we arrived at Uluru (some very big wet drops).
- Checking out Uluru the next day with water still cascading down the gullies.
- Riding our bikes 30km from Alice Springs to Simpson’s Gap and then having to ride back again in unseasonal heat and among relentless flies.
- Swimming and camping out at Edith Falls (within the spectacular Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge) National Park). No danger of crocs, they told us. Though the local Murdoch rag, the NT News, seems to feature plenty of croc stories (crocs are apparently “on the move” as the wet builds here).
- Going to the Sunday night market from some tucker & music at Mindil Beach.
- Finding a flat(!) v.close to Fannie Bay and the Timor Sea.
- Watching a 1.5m long goanna saunter casually past our front steps as we unpacked the car.
- Approaching our dunny only ~1 hour after signing the lease, to find a treacherous, murky puddle of water inside... and then noticing movement from near the toilet rim... and then having a heart seizure as the unmistakable sight of a leg appeared from under the same rim... and recovering sufficiently to hurriedly flush the toilet... and suffering another heart seizure as 3 green tree frogs (the largest the size of a bread & butter plate) dropped out from under the rim and into the aforementioned puddle at the bottom of the bowl... and heroically calling the real estate agent with our problem... and having her arrive at our place laughing, sticking her hand up under the rim and evicting 3 green tree frogs... It kinda makes you view the toilet in a new way.
- Meeting up with the NT Greens crew & helping out with letter-boxing (Catherine) and enlisting to hand out "how-to-vote" cards tomorrow. The Federal seat here is called Solomon & is the most marginal seat in the country held by a Country Liberal guy who, among other things, is proposing a nuclear waste dump for the NT. Surely the people of Australia aren’t self-centred & short-sighted enough to vote for Howard
again, are we?? (War, Kyoto Protocol, Free Trade Agreement, Public Health System, Higher Education $250,000 degree policy...)
- Swimming in our pool at 10pm last night in the dark.
- Eating brekky on the balcony this morning surrounded by palm fronds.
Next:
We’re off to see My Friend the Chocolate Cake play tonight at the Groove Café, Nightcliff (they play in Melbourne on Sunday).
I'll be working here at Dept of Planning, Infrastructure & Environment til 3 December. Cath is talking with people at the hospital and health research places right now.

So our address is:
8/ 17 Bayview Street
Fannie Bay 0820
NT
Ph: (08) 8941 0383

You can check out the location at:
http://www.street-directory.com.au/aus_new/index.cgi

Photos from the trip might be loaded over the weekend at:
http://worldsafaridave.50megs.com

stay in touch.
ciao, darwin dave.