We hit Darwin by storm as usual. We don’t have much choice since we only plan to be here for five days. Dallas had picked up a tourists’ brochure from the RV park in Seisia, so we’d already picked out some things to do and got some more info when we explored the city for the first time.

But first we had to get ashore. We had heard from S/V Imagine that this was an ordeal here at Fannie Bay but didn’t fully grasp what that meant, thinking that it was because one has to anchor almost a mile from the beach due to the 26′ tidal range (like nothing we’ve ever seen)! As it turns out, the long dinghy ride ashore is the easy part. Part of our problem on our first try was that we arrived at the beach in front of the Darwin Sailing Club at low tide. On most beaches, this is not much of a consideration, but here that meant that we had to pull the dinghy across a quarter mile of mud flats. With a 15 horsepower engine on the back, this is no easy task. The Club provides a couple of dolleys to assist with this, but just getting the dinghy onto it was a major struggle. We have it all figured out now.

Fannie Bay at low tide

We caught the bus into the very modern city center. Evidently the city was leveled during Cyclone Tracey in 1974, so all of the buildings are relatively new. There are a few buildings that could be considered skyscrapers (what is the definition of a skyscraper, anyway?), and we haven’t seen one of those in several months. We visited the Customs office to get the paperwork for duty-free diesel (only .84 cents/liter), stopped at Subway for a snack (have to get our fix when it’s available), lounged and read our new brochures in the park (there’s heaps going on in August), and then headed to the Thursday night Sunset Market at Mindil Beach.

Even though there was also a festival going on nearby, there were hundreds of people at the market, consisting of arts and crafts, food stands, live music, and bouncy castle-type things. We caught the tail end of the sunset on the beach before grabbing a bite to eat — Mexican for Dallas, Vietnamese for me. We then cruised around the arts and crafts stand and found a really impressive Aboriginal painting to buy, but it was bought out from under us by another couple…oh well, we’ll find another. The Aboriginal paintings are really unique. Acrylic paint is used with a pattern of dots or, in the case of our desired painting, brush-strokes that represented bush leaves. The colors are usually very vibrant, and each one tells a story, usually about those activities that are part of daily life for the Aborigine: hunting emu, finding a water hole, or collecting leaves for medicinal purposes.

There are many more Aborigines here than in Cairns, and they are visible throughout the modern city, but again, not as employees or consumers but as street people. We even saw a small group starting a fire to cook their food in the public city park! The dichotomy between the ancient Aboriginal and the modern Aussie is really astounding, and it is no wonder that there are such problems between them! We are going to see the premier of a documentary about this very issue on Monday night and looking forward to hearing about it from those who are directly involved.

Just in case we weren’t aware of the tendency for Aborigines to have a problem with alcohol, we had a demonstration that neither of us (and particularly Dallas) are likely to forget anytime soon. We were sitting and waiting for the bus amidst a group of high school kids when a slightly older (maybe 20?) Aborigine with a bottle of Jagermeister came along and started harassing each of the kids, one by one getting in their face and even slapping them. Then when he was done with his bottle, he tossed it across the street and continued to march around in a threatening way until the bus arrived.

I was hoping that he would just sit with his friends and chill out on the bus…that was way too optimistic. As we boarded the bus, I watched as he shoved an Asian kid toward the window to sit next to him, moments before elbowing him in the face. The kid hit back, and then it was a full on fight. I was concerned about the Asian kid, but my shouts of “break it up!” didn’t do any good (surprise, surprise). What was needed was a strong and brave man to pull the Aborigine guy off — enter Dallas. He had no problem getting him off, but the guy was too big and belligerent to be held for any length of time and was soon throwing punches at Dallas. He caught one in the eye before a kick to the mid-region knocked the drunk guy down and in position to be grabbed from behind by a guy about his size who then wrestled with him until the cops showed up. Needless to say, Dallas and I were very pleased to see the drunk guy hauled off in the Paddy wagon! While some of you reading this are probably in a bit of shock (we’re not in Kansas anymore!), Dallas recounted this story to a friend of his on skype yesterday, and the response was, “Dude, that was the first time you’ve been drunk-punched!?” I guess we’ve been hanging out in the wrong crowd or something!

Friday was less dramatic but still eventful. We went ashore around mid-day and made our way to the Crocodylus Park just in time for the croc feeding. It was pretty awesome to see a 15′, 500 pound croc lift its top half out of the water to grab the meat hanging from the dangling string. When its jaw snapped, you could hear a loud pop as the air was quickly displaced! They also had several other endemic animals on display such as emus, wallabies, kangaroos, and dingos. Seeing all of these up close was fascinating, but we are probably a little spoiled by seeing so much wildlife in the actual wild. When it comes to crocs, however, I’d be fine with never again seeing one in the wild. The museum and tour guide made it very clear that in the battle of man vs beast, the croc (if > 12′) wins every time. It’s a good thing we got our snorkeling and diving fix on the GBR, because we won’t be going in the water here….they pull 200 crocs out of the harbor each year for the safety of the residents! The crocs are sometimes killed but are often taken to places like this Park or other croc farms where they are used for meat and leather. The Park that we visited currently holds THOUSANDS of crocs!

Yikes

This pond alone contained over 800 croc Even a baby croc like this had a lot of strength to wriggle

We finished off the day at the Irish pub where Dallas started getting into Australian Rules Football (about 100x more interesting than cricket!). Then we went to what seems to be the hippest bar in town (Wisdom Bar) and found that the pitchers of beer were only $10…surprising considering that a case of beer (30 cans of Victoria Bitter to be specific) goes for $53 at the liquor store! We talked for a couple of hours with a really cool Aussie couple who do a lot of traveling around the bush in their 4×4. I was interested to hear about the presidential election coming up next week – the two primary candidates represent the Labor Party and the Liberal Party, with the latter being more fiscally conservative.

Today (Saturday) ended up being a work day. Dallas replaced a bilge pump, the fresh water pump, and the port navigation light while I placed a $600 Woolworths grocery order online. Our plan was to provision via the bus, making multiple trips with loaded-down backpacks, etc., but then we saw a sign advertising online shopping with free shipping for a limited time! Tomorrow we will have our goods delivered to the Sailing Club, and then we should be all set (in terms of provisions) for the long trip across the Indian Ocean!