from the south 9

So now Stephanie is playing & we’re playing & she’s not crawling but by golly she’s warming up on the starting blocks & we’re dancing in the kitchen under the light of the fluorescent energy saver globe to entertain Steph & we’re loading & listening to our CD collection on iTunes free software & the track right now says: “wake up lazy bones, I’ve been watching you & wondering & now the morning’s gone” & I stick it on random-mode & any one of 2302 songs will play next & we’re home from a Sunday BBQ lunch & we’ve been for a walk around the back streets Coburg & the lemons are all ripening & laden branches are draped over fences & lemons hang within plucking distance & for all it’s low low prices has anyone come across a more disorganized shop than Bi-Lo & the ducted heating coming into it’s own in the depths of the southern winter & memories of bright sun & humidity & whistling kites & pandanus spiralis now quite distant & other-worldly.
Walking along the Merri Creek among flowering Acacias & singing magpies (carna ‘pies) & tracking the curving path to CERES Environmental Park in Brunswick for a cuppa & cake alongside the chooks & walking home to Coburg with the northern winter sun in our faces & then our 9-month old girl contracting the Melbourne chest cold of July 2006 & barking her way through every night for at least a week & CJ celebrating a birthday & going to the movies for the first time post-Steph (Jindabyne) & the dawning realization that life in Melbourne 2006 is very very different to life in Melbourne 2004. Nights at the pub? Nil. Bands seen? Nil. Family days in the cool & grey & green & shade? Every day.
Second teaching placement of the Dip Ed now over & back to uni as a student next week & enjoying the placement & getting some terrific feedback from students & other teachers & very much looking forward to life as a teacher & CJ working 3 days/ week now.
Holidays in the Grampians as a family very cool & very freezing cold with overnight temperatures around minus 3 & the 270km road trip to Halls Gap taking all day with a grazing lunch stop in Ballarat & an afternoon pot in the Ararat front bar & thinking that on the Stuart Highway we would have covered that distance before brekky & loving the tranquil pace set by the demands of a little ‘un & frost & cockatoos & a burnt-out shell of a landscape around Halls Gap with charred Eucalypts as far as sight can see & regrowth sprouting defiant & bushy & green from the trunks at every turn & climbing Mt. Zero in the north with panoramic views of olive crops & climbing in the fog in the south & wheeling the pram to the summit of Mt William & there was no need to take half the gear we did. Slow cooking spaghetti in the cabin at night as the frost came down & Steph sleeping on the floor & all of us bunking in together for night after night in the quiet & the cold. Ahhh, the bush. Ahh, abbotsford Invalid Stout.

south 8 (& feelin it)

"If you think you loved a wild one,
Surely now you knew.." -tim rogers

june. winter in the south.
I feel well pooped and ready for a rest. The end of uni semester coincided with the climax of my job & all of it coincided with some extra teaching & through it all of course were (&are) fun times with Catherine & with Stephanie.

CJ & I dined out at Pearl, saw Lano & Woodley, CJ had a mother's day(!) & we've caught up with people & eaten too much (way too many chocolate biscuits). Winter appears to be the chocolate season. This clashes with my previous understanding that summer was the chocolate season. And more recently I believed that autumn was definitely the chocolate season. Now I know I was wrong both times.

We're re-discovering the Melbourne winter idea of cooking up a roast. knocking off some rosemary sprigs from the garden of a house around the corner & slow cooking a roast. yum. bottle of red. yum. Ah - to feel some cool weather once more...

Riding the bike around in the mornings is taking some psychological fortitude. Fog. Numb fingers. Icy wind in the eyes. Tears & dribble. Hmmm. Bracing.

I'm on a break from uni now for a few weeks. Next placement begins on 10 July. CJ works on for Melbourne Uni as a researcher, moving to 3 days/week soon. Steph will spend 2 days with CJ, 1-2 days with me and 1-2 days with Mum. She's over 7 months old now & sitting up & shoving everything she can into her mouth.

Stephanie's songs & gurgles & squeaks & laughs & cries & yelps & grunts & hysterical wailings & whimpers & whistles & clicks can fill the house. This morning she woke up singing.
Her gaze is intense & her interest in most things really obvious. Her face grows evermore expressive. Catherine & I are loving these days & their routines which involve feeds of yoghurt, feeds of vegies, dances around the loungeroom, baths, walks to the park & chasing the afternoon sun around the house.
We chopped the tops off 3 trees in the front yard last week, to catch some more of that afternoon sun. The winter gloom is more gloomy than I remember it being (back in winter '04).

Loving this winter. With the 'Woods in good form, red wine back on the agenda & a bit of afternoon sun, how good is that?
Hope all is well for you & yours.

from the south 7

G’day all,
It’s a strange time in Coburg. Winter arrived with its colds southerlies & icy rain & low skies & big dark overcoats & dark clothes & dark rooms in dark houses very suddenly here. Four weeks ago it was hot. But it seems autumn has been skipped this year.
Cold-weather footy is back. Went to watch Collingwood in Round 1. Collingwood Football Club was defeated by Adelaide Basketball Club. Chip-chip-chip. Keep possession. Kick sideways. Kick backwards. Chip-chip-chip. Utterly infuriating.
And I’ve experienced high school teaching now, with three weeks of Year 8 Maths, Science and Year 11 Maths. Placement was a great learning experience – so much happening in schools, and a very wide array of teaching styles consider. It was a tiring time for us all; Catherine & Stephanie carried a huge load during that time.
Steph will be 6 months old on Wednesday. Howabout that?!
It somehow makes all the recent meals (visits and visitors) with family & mates feel more special with the knowing of Steph’s little milestone. More & more I’m realizing that these shared experiences are the bricks of life. I think the mortar is probably the attitude or philosophy you bring to a situation. Maybe. I’ll think about it a bit more. Certainly, we have been lucky to make many shared bricks lately.
Listening to Tim Rogers here: “As the social climbers pack their four wheel drives out to the coast/Drag this load out to the bay & just let him float away” …and reading John Banville. Eclipse.
Work & daily life did, I’m afraid, consume a little too much of me lately. But very happy to have emerged from the Frantic Times & to be again writing stories & again strumming the 6-strings & again singing in the shower.
May your shower be full of songs today & tomorrow!
Salutations!
(And many thoughts to those in Darwin as Cyclone Monica tracks ever closer)
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDD65011.shtml

from the south 6

g'day -
this is the best time of year in Melbourne, I reckon. Cold mornings and bright sunnny days. Haven't seen any fog yet - that's probably still a month away. But
it's been my birthday. 31 now.
We ventured down to the Yarra River last week to check out this reported Games Fever gripping the city. Apart from visits from Mum in her volunteers uniform &
parking her Games car in the driveway, the whole thing had nearly slipped by without us noticing. Last week was the first time CJ or I had hung out in town in at
least 18 months & it has really changed a lot. The city square has again been redesigned. The general hatred & avoidance of Federation Square that I remember appears to have turned around 180degrees - the place was chockers. And someone put parks & gardens on the north side of the river. Good idea.
Melbourne scrubbed up well.
Steph seemed to have a good time visiting her city for the first time, but wasn't too thrilled with the loop section of the train ride. Life is on Fast Forward for the next week or so here, as CJ is working 2 days/week, I am still working for
Charles Darwin Uni & my first placement in a school begins on Monday 27th. I've been placed at Brunswick Secondary College for 3 weeks...
ciao all.

from the south 5

g'day,
I used to think that life flew by very quickly. With a new marker of time, Stephanie, life is roaring by like never before. She’s been with us nearly 4 months now & yes, since last time she has grown & grown & developed & grown a bit more. In the olden days, we gauged the passage of time through events/ places/ journeys. Nowadays it seems we gauge the passage of time through the growing of a person.

We don’t really get out & about much these days; one trip per day is about it. And a walk to the supermarket counts as a trip. These walks are little journeys of discovery & enlightenment such that we, like young European aristocrats, now know the virtues of a parasol on a sunny day. So we spend a lot of time in Coburg. Knowing other parents. Bumping into people at the shops. It’s happening. The feeling of community is at the tips of our fingers.

Meanwhile, the back porch is a happy place to be. Birds twitter and flap around in the aviary next door; the lemon tree we planted last year has established; and two acacia seedlings that we picked up from the CERES market in Brunswick are kicking on. Ruefully, however, I must report the recent death by cat attack of three birds in our very back yard. A ginger cat from 2 doors down appeared in our yard one morning, whose stealthy stalking was screened most effectively by some (admittedly) pretty long grass. And then POUNCE. Whammo. Dead bird. Three times. Terrible.

The big trip of recent times was a three night adventure I had in Darwin for work. Weird to be back there. Back walking the streets we’d inhabited for 12 months. Back in the land of monsoon and iced coffee and the NT News. But back without Catherine. Walking along the Fannie Bay cliff tops without her felt like walking without my shadow, or without my whole self. It felt a bit empty. A bit surreal. I wanted to tell stories & show things, but couldn’t. Touch down in Melbourne was brilliant but even better was being greeted by Catherine & Stephanie as I walked through the plane doors.

And so the days slip by.
Sometimes they glide by.
Sometimes they frazzle by; or perhaps we frazzle through them.
But mostly they pulse from one session of Steph-awake time to the next. These days she breaks into a huge smile when eye contact is made, her legs pump around like crazy, she gurgles & sings. Shed sucks on her own fist. And of course she screams the house down from time to time.
In between, in the quiet times, there are gardens to garden, washing to wash, cooking to cook, work to work & sleep to sleep.
A couple of biggish life changes, hitherto distant, are now almost on top of us. Next week I commence a Grad Dip in Secondary education, a one year fulltime course that will have me out & about in schools & contributing in a very immediate way. Seriously looking forward to this course. And CJ will soon be re-starting work, probably for a coupla days a week.
I hope this letter finds you well.
Happy days to you & yours.
yo.
dave & catherine & stephanie of Coburg.

from the south 4

"In the morning when from slumber you awake,
Find me sleeping like a baby by your side..."
I’ve been listening to a bit of Weddings, Parties, Anything lately.
And watching old episodes of Seachange on DVD, borrowed from the Coburg library.
And then, whammo, cut off from communications for a day or two, we opened last Friday’s paper to find the smiling face of Kristy on Page 4 and Catherine thought: “Wow, what has Kristy done to get into the paper?” before reading the headline and finding that her cousin had died in a bus crash in Egypt.

All of which points life in a certain direction…
Too much of a cliché?

The peak summer took us to Moe & Toora for Christmas day, back up to Heidelberg for Boxing Day, and to the big new stand at the MCG for the Test as Hussey rattled up the improbable ton. We sweated out a hot week leading to New Year with Justine & Ian & Ted & Katya sharing our house & sharing some time in the stifling humidity of the Coburg indoor pool.
New Year’s Eve (42.9°C for those afar, but who’s counting?) saw us attend the afternoon wedding of Seona & Peter, with half the assembled throng venturing from Ireland for the occasion. Black tie was causing a few overheating issues. Wonderful reception at the Grand Hyatt, for which Catherine & I left Stephanie in the hands of babysitters for the first time (my parents). ‘Twas difficult to leave her. So Happy New Year!

2006. We took our little girl camping last week with Jeff & Kirsten. Down to Cumberland River, just beyond Lorne, for a couple of nights under the stars. Steph lolled around & seemed to enjoy the outdoors, coming with us on a bushwalk up to Jebb’s Pool. Those baby-carriers are great. Our biggest concern was how noisy she would be overnight, but she was very quiet. A great fun trip, even though the wind sprung up and prevented an ocean swim. Maybe next time.

My application to study a 1-year Graduate Diploma of secondary teaching was accepted last week – so I’m off to uni (again) to become a High School teacher of science & geography. This fits very nicely into the Weddo’s/ Seachange/ Life philosophy. Teaching is something I enjoy & see as the most worthwhile thing I can do right now. Down the track, it will give me holidays concurrent with Stephanie & also, it is a very portable vocation. And the continual search for the next research contract & source of funding had become a cross too large to bear. That was no way to live.
Now I’m in the market for part time work and so is Catherine. The plan for 2006 is that, between us, we can earn one full time wage and have full time care of Steph, too. And to get some native plants into our yard. And to harvest from our vegie garden. And to plant a vegie garden… An exciting time ahead.

I hope, wherever this finds you, that all is well. Ciao from Coburg
"Some people pray for rain, some people pray for holidays
Some people pray for money without swelter
We just pray for two shifts at the same end of the day
And a life that is not quite so helter-skelter"
- WPA; Step in, step out

from the south 3

Merry Christmas! Ten days to Christmas. No, we don’t have any religious affiliation with the day; it’s more a milestone or a yardstick or a touchstone or a gauge point, for me. This year feels different. Have you noticed it? It’s as though the world isn’t quite sitting right. Hmmm. Maybe it’s my imagination.

Back in Big Ol’ Melbourne Town for the mad time of year & it’s starting to show. Never seen so many cars on the roads; stoplights blinking, shuffling & crawling & belching smog at 20km/h on roads designed for 80km/h. Sprawling soulless shopping centres with their sprawling hot car parks (parks?) and sprawling aggression and heat and everywhere a rush-rush-rushin’ to “get things done” & don’t worry ‘cos “things will be better next year…” Why next year?

It’s a jungle out there. Walking through our wonderful double front doors though, all dramas of the outside world are forgotten. We’re living a local life in the multicultural (truly) north of Melbourne; walking to the shops & to the baby health centre & to the plant nursery & to the market & avoiding use of the car. We ripped up a little Cyprus from our yard & potted it as our Christmas tree – which CJ then majestically decorated. Ho ho ho. It sits in the mouth of our fire place, awaiting the arrival of the jolly fat red man.

This year he’ll be focussed not on CJ, nor on me. No, this year Stephanie will take centre stage for her first Christmas. She has been flat out eating & sleeping & playing since birth 7 weeks ago. And growing. She’s increased her mass by a third, and left size 0000 and size 000 behind... They grow up so fast! Last night, carrying her wailing form around the back of the house, her growth was obvious. Instead of the compact, red-faced source of yelling of 6 weeks ago, she had become a writhing, kicking, swirling red-faced source of yelling…

It seems that she does something new every day. Holding her own head up, twisting it around; lifting her head while lying on her tummy; making her first voice/ talk-ish sounds; sleeping for 7 consecutive hours overnight for the first time (miracle, o miracle!); enjoying bath after bath after bath & then discovering the joys of baby massage. Loving hugs on the couch after a feed with a milk-drunk little girl on my shoulder, gradually working up the strength to turn her head & look me in the eye…
I’m rambling now. Somebody stop me.

A few weeks ago I rambled enough to enter & win the Moreland regional short story competition. The topic? Yep, it was about Stephanie…. (noticing a pattern here?)

Most adventures of the past month have occurred at our place, as Steph grows & learns & wakes & sleeps. It’s an awe-inspiring time. Last year CJ & I spent Christmas sweating it out at Jabiru, as the first of the monsoon rains reached Kakadu. It all seems like a different age. As we wish you a Merry Christmas this year, we are living in a wonderfully happy house full of music & milk spews & a flowering kangaroo paw & lemon cake & a flavoursome kaffir lime tree (get one of these trees – green curry brilliance). I look forward to the reflection times of next Christmas, when I can re-visit these days.

So it’s Merry Christmas to you from us in Coburg.
May your reflections be kind & your Christmas time happy & healthy.

from the south 2

Stephanie Jean Wilson lives with us now. She is 21 days old. Already life before Stephanie seems very distant and seems unfamiliar and we were saying that neither of us can imagine life without her. What did we used to do on a Tuesday night? How did we spend Saturdays? But I can still remember the now unreachable nirvana of an unbroken night’s sleep. Ah yes. Things have changed. Life has changed. She is a miracle.

The last 3 weeks have been the steepest of steep learning curves. Feeding, sleeping, crying in various combinations for various lengths of time at various times of the day and invariably in the early hours of the morning. Trying to distinguish night & day with quiet time changes and feeds at night and fun & games during the day. Tummy time. Singing songs. Projectile poo. Milk possets. Bath time is a favourite time for everybody.

Settling a crying little girl. An artform. So many tricks. Clean? Fed? Then rock slowly. Sway. Jiggle a bit. Walk long distances with her in your arms. Walk long distances with her in a pram. Sing songs. And all the time keep her wrapped tightly. Very tightly. Stephanie is a real Houdini when it comes to freeing her arms from tight wraps. Little arms wriggling. Body squirming. Red in the face with effort. Grunt. Wriggle some more. Grunt some more. And four little fingers appear magically from amongst the cloth. Adult wrapper defeated again.

Stephanie is a joy. She is everything. I read many accounts of parenthood & childbirth & they always say it is a moving experience never to be forgotten. It is commonly listed among people’s happiest moments in life. It’s something I couldn’t appreciate before now. Seeing and touching Stephanie for the first time was indescribable.

And for CJ & I to be responsible for this little one… Breathtaking.

The nuts & bolts then: born by Caesarean at 16:01, 26 October 2005. 52.5cm long. 3.5kg (7lb 13oz). Full head of dark hair. Stunningly beautiful girl.
Cath & Steph stayed in hospital for 3 nights before they came home. Driving home from the hospital with my girls in the car, I felt at once immensely powerful and incredibly vulnerable. Cars seemed to change lanes more dangerously than before. People seemed to be tailgating more vigorously than before. Already protective.

Challenges are continually presented. Challenges are continually met. Stephanie does her best, without the power of speech, to keep us informed of her thoughts. We do our best to interpret. And to show her things and to encourage. Sometimes a guidebook is useful. Sometimes advice & stories from other parents are useful. Mostly we just do what feels right. Life has never been like this before. This is life.

from the south 1

We’re back. We’re back in Victoria. Land of chilly mornings, central heating & jeans & jumpers. We’ve each worn a scarf! Land of having to be aware of the daily weather forecast.
Spent most of the time stamping our mark on our new house in Coburg. Settling in. Moving boxes. Cardboard boxes everywhere. Not much furniture. Yet. But a wonderful feeling of home & lots of colours & warmth & music & a new 4-burner BBQ. Unpacking boxes full of things we forgot we had. Like the Black Sorrows & the desk lamp on a moveable arm. Stuff.
We arrived in town on the Tuesday morning. Our car arrived on the Friday. Very impressed. Freighted boxes a week later.
Cath is off work now. Pregnancy is at 37.5 weeks. Apparently anything after 38 is considered full term. So we’re close. In changing from NT to Victorian care, Cath has had lots of attention from midwives. It’s been terrific. A scan at 34 weeks revealed that Little Litchfield had turned to breech position. This morning this was still the case. This, despite 7 days of ancient Chinese remedies to encourage the little one to turn. And so now we’re booked in for a Caesarean! Next Wednesday!

As CJ wrote: “Our little baby has decided to assert his/her individuality from an early age and is still breech despite our many requests for it to turn around. This means that despite pursuing a low intervention/ midwife led model of care through out our pregnancy, our baby will be delivered by caesarean next Wednesday 26 October (38.5 weeks) at the Mercy Hospital Heidelberg!
We were booked in next week as the following week was too busy due to the Melbourne Cup! I hope the planets are aligned auspiciously and all that...
So, we have Little Litchfield’s birthday marked on the calendar a week in advance! It has been a lesson in learning to take our hands off the wheel and that there is only so much we can control. At the end of the day, this little baby has made their own plans…”

Just as well CJ has already painted our kids’ cupboard. And that we’ve got a baby capsule buckled in the back seat of the car. And we’ve got a cradle. And 100 nappies. And a bath. And a baby bjorn. And a bounce-a-net. And filled the freezer with pre-cooked dinners for easy thawing in the sleep-deprived days/weeks following. Bolognaise sauce and curry galore. And a wardrobe full of size 0000 and size 000 clothes. And all this stuff either given to us or on loan. Very thankful.
Dinners & trips for dinner & visiting old mates & being visited by old mates & the excitement of the shared life. Everywhere.

I’m working from two bases: Monash uni and home. Working from home is tricky – there are boxes to unpack & food to cook & a neighbourhood to explore & a CJ to play with. Working from Monash is tricky too – 2 trains & a bus. Or 2 trains & a bike. 1 ¼ hours door-to-door is my personal best.
But work is tough to focus on just now.
It’s Tuesday night.
Next Wednesday a new life begins.
Paul recommended we sing Paul Kelly’s Nukkanya to Little Litchfield throughout the pregnancy. And we suggested Across the Universe for his & Clare’s little one-on-the-way.
I wonder what the unborn baby experiences.
We’ve had a large number of ultrasounds. Is that a problem?
We’ve played music quite loudly.
We’ve moved house. Lived in Darwin. Lived in Melbourne. We haven’t eaten much fish. Done lots of walking next to Fannie Bay & East Point. Are these things important? Activities seen now through a different prism. A new perspective developing.

A week remains until I’m a father.
So many little jobs to be done – rubber seals for the front door, mow the lawn(!), varnish the box, check out childcare, get a pusher/ pram, have the baby capsule installation checked… before our child is born. Next Wednesday. Read up on those ubiquitous references Baby Love & Kid-wrangling… Can you use a manual to look after a baby? What about instincts? We’ll see.
Next Wednesday.

top end tales #12

g’day from the top end,
the dry is over. The build-up is back.
Seasons dominate life here in the way that day-to-day fluctuations dominate life in the south. There is no need to catch the weather forecast in Darwin. Variation only occurs at a seasonal scale and the seasons have turned again. Humidity is rising. Overnight minimum temperatures are around 25. There’s no relief. Mind you, living through uninterrupted cloudless blue skies became a little jarring to the senses after about five months, so the end of the Dry season is surprisingly welcome.

We caught the first storm shower of the build-up season out at Litchfield, which we farewelled with Joey & her mates from Melbourne with an extended dip at Florence Falls. Now, there’s a place where you could spend all day. But tourist numbers have dropped markedly in the past few weeks. Last Sunday we even had an uninterrupted view down the whole length of Mindil Beach market; contrasting with the crush of humanity that gathers there during the Dry Season.

Darwin locals never miss a chance to celebrate their “way of life” as a point of difference with southerners. After living here for a year, I agree that life in the Top End is quite relaxed, but I think living in this climate is outrageous. You can be the most relaxed banana in the bunch, but if you’re unable to walk outside without losing a bucket of sweat, you’re a pretty useless banana. Incidentally, the 12 months just gone was the hottest 12 month period in the last 60 years the Top End. Cath is up to 33 weeks pregnancy now, and we have a couple of childbirth education classes behind us.

Before the build-up gets too out-of-hand though, Catherine & I are out of here; jumping on a big silver bird to the south in the first week of October, and returning to the Land of the Big V. So this is the last of the Top End Tales.

This journey to the top of Australia has been a blessing, a challenge, difficult, and wonderful. I’ll be forever grateful that we took the plunge. We have been welcomed by workmates & locals & enjoyed many amazing adventures in the tough old tropical north. At times it is difficult to conceive that the Top End is on the same land mass as Melbourne, Sydney and Wangaratta, so different is the culture, vibe and atmosphere.

So it’s farewell to pandanus palms lining every river bank, farewell to whistling kites circling overhead, farewell to the Parap market with its laksa and crepe stalls, farewell to power blackouts and spectacular lightning storms, farewell to nightly late evening swims, farewell to rivers of sweat running down ones forearms, farewell to stifling, suffocating humidity, farewell to torrential, flooding wet season rains, farewell to East Point reserve and the views of Fannie Bay, farewell to the NT News, farewell to Ubirr, Jabiru, Nourlangie, Cooinda, Yellow Water, South Alligator, Gunlom, Barramundi, farewell to Kakadu (may the cane toads spare you too much destruction), farewell to Territory’s Own iced coffee milk, farewell to the unspeakably magnificent sunsets, farewell to bushfire smoke, farewell to convoys of caravans and grey nomads, farewell to the goannas and geckos in the garden, farewell to the green tree frogs of our porch and toilet bowl, farewell ceiling fans, farewell Deckchair cinema, farewell metal power poles, farewell to the threat of imminent death by cyclone, farewell crocodiles, farewell box jellies, farewell grilled barramundi on a bed of mashed potato with lime butter sauce.

We’ll be living in Coburg from 4 October. Hope everything is well for you & your family.

top end tales #11

G’day all from the top end,

This is the winter that never was. The sun shines fiercely on. The sky remains a brilliant blue. And another day of 30+degrC unfolds. Images of snow scattered Victoria feel as distant as Switzerland as the urge builds again for an iced cold one. Bicycle transport is a breeze. Evening walks by Fannie Bay enchanting. The light of the setting sun, slipping orange and gold behind the East Point palms, is a daily wonder.

The smoke haze of May and June has dissipated as the management fires of the early Dry season have ended for another year. And still the sun shines on. Emus sprint across the savanna country. Green tree frogs are re-appearing on our front porch and re-appearing in our toilet bowl. Their return is a happy one; it signals the closing of the seasonal loop. Soon the Build-Up will be upon us once more.

Shops and streets and car parks and restaurants are still packed with dry season tourists, though. The Darwin Festival is taking place for the next couple of weeks and the town is culturally a-buzz. This follows on from the Darwin Show and the Darwin Cup Carnival; it has been a frenetic time in the Top End and the tourists are out in force.

The winter that never was. In Casuarina shopping centre, the chain stores stock the same items as their southern franchise mates. Last weekend we noticed one jeans shop selling ug boots. Ug boots?! For one, it’s highly doubtful that anyone in the top end would feel the need to purchase woollen footwear; and two, it’s worrying that anyone in the south would feel the need to wear them either. I can’t believe that they are fashionable down south. Can it be true? Are hula hoops back? Yo-yos?

At times like that, Darwin feels very much removed from the rest of Australia, and blessedly so. Asian influences up here are, of course, huge, and it’s a beautiful thing to wander the markets on a Saturday morning, satay smoke and incense swirling in the breeze, didgeridoo barks in the air, slurping down a lime juice and living the tropical dry. And still the sun shines on.

Kakadu showed its changing colours once more, when we headed over with Catherine’s parents a few weeks back. Water levels and undergrowth and fires and bird species and humidity and tourist numbers have all fluctuated and been spectacular to see & feel. I’m very happy with a series of photos taken on each visit at points within the Park, to show changes in water level and vegetation.

Catherine & I are, however, preparing once more for life in the south. We pop down to Victoria for the last week of August, to move furniture into our new house in Coburg. After that we’ll be in the Top End for four more weeks before making the shift south in the first week of October.

Little Litchfield has kicked and bumped and hip& shouldered his/ her way to 28 weeks. It still feels odd to me to feel little Litchfield’s movement under Cath’s skin; I can’t imagine what it must feel like for Cath. We’re expecting his/ her arrival around 4 November.

So to those in the cold parts, we hope you had a happy winter & to anyone who bought ug boots, we hope they kept your feet warm.

ciao for now from the fine dry sunny Top End,
top end tom & Kakadu cath & the (future) artist known for now as little Litchfield.

photos at http://worldsafaridave.50megs.com

top end tales #10

g’day all from the fine dry Top End,
Two versions here; slow and quick versions.

Slow version:
Cath is growing a big belly. She’s coming up to 24 weeks pregnant now and there’s no denying it. Last night, for the first time, I felt the little ‘un kick. Breath-taking. There seem to be a lot of pregnant women waddling around Darwin at the moment. From what I hear, it’s the same in Melbourne. I don’t know if that’s true, but what is definitely true is that this is a very good season in which to pregnant. The humidity has gone and instead the air overnight is cool and dry.

A great big brush-tail possum has taken up residence near our veranda but we haven’t seen or heard of any frogs in recent weeks. In fact, not since the last Top End ramblings. Part of the seasonal dynamic, I guess. We have seen a heck of a lot of ginger fire ants. That’s my name for them. When they bite, it feels like your skin is on fire for minutes afterwards. I’m waging a major war against the fire ants as we speak, which recently crossed the line into chemical warfare. Ant-Rid is yet to prove its worth, however.

Since last time, I’ve been busy at work installing field equipment at our site in the Douglas-Daly region ~200km south of Darwin. Working in beautiful tropical savanna country can seem idyllic in a photo, but photos can’t quite replicate the full experience which includes furnace-like heat and various biting bugs. Maybe it’s character-building. I don’t know. I’m really starting to doubt that phrase.

One field trip was enough to persuade us that we needed to see the Douglas-Daly area properly. So we took a long weekend & went bush. Swimming in the Douglas River, devouring a buffalo roast (OK, so we weren’t “roughing it” too much), enduring a rough 4WD track & climbing over rocky ledges to find the oasis of Butterfly Gorge and swimming & snorkling in it were well worth the trip.

Even more recently, we’ve had Jeff & Kirsten come up to stay. We all had a ripper of a road trip to Kakadu taking in Parap markets and Ubirr on the Saturday before having our tents surrounded by those of a pack of Year 10 girls in our absence. Came back from dinner to find a tribe of giggling young ladies all yakking and laughing and otherwise causing a general nuisance in the area. I ask you, is that any way to behave? Gave them a stern talking to and then snatched a few zzzz’s and we continued on to the south the next day. Checked out Nourlangie and Cooinda, and, after that a magical spot called Barramundi Gorge. Picked up a Czech backpacker on the road on the way in there & had a dip in the crystal clear waters of the escarpment country. Camped at Katherine Gorge & paddled the river the next day, right up to the second gorge and swam near a spot aptly called the Narrows.

At the moment Jo & Dean are up for a visit – they are out bush in the Top End – we’ll catch them again on the weekend. And caught Sarah at the Mindil Beach markets last Thursday. It’s great seeing Melbourne mates in the Top End.

Monday night Cath & I bought a house. We haven’t seen it in person yet, but we reckon it’s a great buy. It’s in Coburg. We’ve been searching for a little while, and Mum & Dad & Kirsten & Jacqui have been our eyes at the Open For Inspections. And now we’ve got a 3 bedroom renovated Californian bungalow to move back to in October. You beauty!
Hope all is well in your patch.
ciao from top end tom & kakadu cath

Quick version:
Our little ‘un is in good health as is CJ
Had a great holiday at Douglas-Daly, Butterfly Gorge
Had a great holiday at Kakadu, Katherine with Jeff & Kirsten
Bought a house in Coburg

Photos at:
http://worldsafaridave.50megs.com

Top End Tales -number9

G’day from the Top End,

We made it. This is the dry season. The fabled dry season. Beautiful one day, glorious the next. Sitting here I see a brilliant blue sky with just a couple of white fluffy clouds skittering across the horizon & it’s 32degrees (again). Humidity is way down – every day is like a perfect Melbourne summer’s day. And that’s the forecast every day from now until ~September. Mmmmmm.

Since the last edition, CJ & I have had a good run. Can’t say the same for our tree frogs, though, which seem to have virtually disappeared in the absence of rain.

Mum & Dad came up to visit Darwin for a week, before driving down to the red centre. That was great fun. Had a long weekend over at Kakadu, checking out the rock paintings & waterways & wildlife. The waters had dropped a lot since our previous trip at easter (http://worldsafaridave.50megs.com/gagudju.html).
Just as we were thinking of heading back to Darwin, Dad suggested we all take a scenic flight. Seeing the whole area from the air was unforgettable. The little 6-seater single-propeller plane flew over the draining floodplains and out to the escarpment country, circling Twin Falls and Jim Jim Falls. It was about here that mum hurled. But we also flew close by Nourlangie Rock and right down to the South Alligator River, where the massive snaking rivers and waterways were magnificent.

Later that week Dad & I went fishing on the mighty Daly River. A guide took us out for the day in his boat, providing all rods, gear, food & drinks. He confidently predicted we would each catch a barramundi, but couldn’t say whether we would catch any keepers (a barra has to be between 55 and 120cm length to keep it – maximum 3 per person, per day – not likely to be a concern). Dad & I each landed a couple of 40cm barras and were pretty happy with the morning’s work, when all of a sudden we went BANG BANG BANG & had barra coming out of our ears. I pulled up one at 77cm and Dad then landed two – at 62 and 58cm. All keepers. So we’ve now got a freezer full. The river was a beauty – tidal 100km inland and a beautiful sight. A bit like the mighty Murray in places; except that melaleuca lined the edges, crocs were sunning themselves all along the banks and we saw a few jabirus wading about. Plenty birds of prey were also circling, mainly whistling kites.

Since then, CJ & I have hit the Parap market most Saturday mornings, and we’ve been to a few public lectures on health & river issues. We saw the new Star Wars (what do you think?), and we attended an open-air evening show of the Darwin Symphony Orchestra at the Botanic Gardens – a similar spot to the Myer Music Bowl.

A couple of weeks ago we had a feed with Cuan, who was in town for a conference, and last weekend we caught up with Luke for a camping weekend of swimming and fires & food down at Litchfield National park, as he neared the end of an epic road trip that took him up the WA coast from Melbourne.

I’ve had my last guitar lesson for a while & submitted two short stories in the NT writer’s awards. CJ continues to be involved with the Greens, who have cranked up now that the NT elections have been called for 18 June – about 70 of us are having dinner with Bob Brown tonight.

I’m working now at Charles Darwin University. Will be instrumenting our field site in the next couple of weeks/ months. Last night I visited an old field site & lit a few fires as part of a savanna fire experiment. It’s good fun.

And last but not least, Cath (and I..!) have got a 19-20 week ultrasound tomorrow. We reckon we’d rather leave the gender of the little ‘un, known these days as Little Litchfield, as a surprise. Cath is very healthy and we’re both very excited (and getting more excited by the day).

In the coming weeks Cath’s parents will be up for a holiday, followed a bit later by Jeff & Kirsten. So we’ll soon be hitting the road for some more top end adventures. The dry season is upon us & life is beautiful. Hope all is well wherever you are.

Ciao belli, top end tom & Kakadu cath

Photos (check out the barra) at http://worldsafaridave.50megs.com

Top End Tales 8

G’day from the territory.

Last night Catherine hesitated before getting in the pool because the night was too cool..! The minimum temperature in Darwin last night was 24.0degreesC. It’s getting brisk. The humidity is leaving & for the firtst time, you can even go for a walk without becoming covered in sweat. And the smell of smoke is in the air. Last night at the Trailer Boat Club some flakes of ash wafted on the breeze & sometimes onto our table, while this morning featured a hazy sunrise over the harbour. The burning season.

It hasn’t slowed down the frogs, though, who were sighted clambering over the fly wire on the kitchen window and also, more distressingly, hiding inside a pair of my jox that were hanging on the line. They’re clearly made of tough stuff. Since the last Tales we had one of those trips that help to define life – an almighty trip with Melbourne & Brizzy mates that took us through the wilds of Kakadu and even paddling a stretch of Katherine Gorge at Easter.

And what follows easter..? Cricket season, of course. Cricketers are out & about on the ovals these days as the season has just started. Everything is topsy-turvy.

Speaking of which, watching AFL is trickier than I imagined. It’s an AFL town (think Maurice Rioli, Michael Long, Nathan Buckley, Aaron Davey, etc etc – in fact Shannon Motlop was even playing in the local competition up until February 2005), yet we only see live AFL on the days when Channel 10 has the TV rights. E.g. was rapt to see Collingwood run over the top of Carlton LIVE one Saturday afternoon... On Friday nights or Sundays, however, when Channel 9 has the TV rights, they show rugby league. Getting a real feel for the way Channel 9 continues to shaft regional Australia. The sooner they lose the rights, the better.

We’ve recently been along to housewarming parties, fishing trips, bookclubs, engagement parties and CJ helped to organise an open-air movie night fundraiser. I’ve had a couple of guitar lessons and we just had 2 long weekends in a row.

ANZAC day long weekend CJ & I camped & walked & swam down at Edith Falls; ~250km south of Darwin. This weekend just gone, May Day weekend, Nicko & Jess arrived from Melbourne & we tripped around a bit with them. On Sunday the four of us boarded a Sea-Cat that took us out to the Tiwi Islands – spent the day at Parslake on Melville Island, celebrating the 300th anniversary of the Dutch landing there in 1705. A Very Big Day. The 2-hour catamaran trip ended at Nguiu-Paru, from where we were scheduled for a 1 hour bus trip to the celebration site. Unfortunately no one told the bus drivers, who were having enough trouble with flat tyres and the like, as well as conflicting advice about our arrival point on the island, so that some buses were sent to Paru and others to the airport.

All in all, the trip took many many hours but was a great experience in Tiwi life. CJ & I spied a sea turtle swimming of the port side of the boat as we came into the islands, before all 100 passengers were unloaded from the catamaran by barge. The day was a terrific occasion and one of only a handful of times when visitors are allowed onto the Tiwi Islands without an Aboriginal Lands permit. We ate suspiciously cooked steaks and drank copious fluids as a re-enactment of the Dutch landing took place, complete with locals throwing spears and Dutchies firing guns. Swirling Dutch music, dancing competitions, Tiwi islanders wearing clogs, Ted Egan singing "Home on the range," and barra burgers all added to the cultural mix of the day. We bought a piece of inspired Tiwi art before bussing back to Paru. Washed the day down on the catamaran with a few cold ones while waiting (2 hours) for some stragglers that the bus had left behind, and then motored back to Darwin. The waters of Beagle Gulf had chopped up nicely during the day, and I don’t mind saying that this reporter lost a bit of lunch overboard on the return trip (as did Cath (sorry Cath)).

Workwise, CJ has landed a permanent position with the Department of Health & Community Services that will lock into place following her current contract. My contract with NT Gov ends this week and I’m then starting work on a water/ vegetation research project at Charles Darwin Uni.

But the happiest story is that CJ & I are expecting a child. Cath is now 12ish weeks pregnant and we’re starting to notice some visible signs of the internal excitement. Had an ultrasound yesterday & all is in order. The little ‘un is due around early November.

So life continues to fly along. Photos of the top end are at the usual.
http://worldsafaridave.50megs.com

Keep punching.

- top end.

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.