2021 - QLD-NT-WA-SA-VIC-NSW-QLD: 05/31/21

Monday, May 31, 2021

Day 42: Tue 1 Jun - Darwin

21-33 degC, 98-58% humidity

End of our 6th week on the road; it doesn't seem that long ago that we left home

Greg was up well before light this morning to ride into the Convention Centre to help farewell a crazy cyclist, Rupert Guinness, cycling from Darwin to Hobart over the next 12-14 days; that's a crazy 350-400 km/day!!! Not even Greg would try that! Greg got to meet 'The Voice of Cycling in Australia' - Mike Tomalaris from SBS who is following Rupert with a film crew for SBS. If you watch the start, you might see Greg in the background. Greg really enjoyed the morning.

After our COVID-19 jabs yesterday, we were both feeling a tad picqued, but not sure if that is totally from the vaccine or a combination of the vaccine and the increase in humidity. Probably the latter, although Greg did have a bit of a temperature this afternoon.

Whilst Wendy did a couple of hours work, Greg took a walk up to Hardly Normal to buy a new electric razor as the one he bought in Batemans Bay 2017 decided it did not want to play anymore. After a light lunch (it is far too warm to eat anyting other than light), we both had an LLD which was interrupted by those pesky RAAF fast jets.

An afternoon of doing not much for Greg, but Wendy completed the washing cycle, and cleaned the van. She wanted to get rid of all the accumulated calcium and lime on all the metal bits of the van from the large varieties of water used over the past six weeks, and she actually succeeded.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a more energetic day.

Greg and Mike Tomalaris

Rupert Guinness

Early morning Darwin

An old petrol bowser at the van park

Where we are staying

One of those really fast, noisy RAAF fast jets, F-35A Lightning II, valued at approx $236M each, Australia will eventually have 72, we currently have about 22

Turn up the volume, you can hear them long after they have disappeared from view

Day 41: Mon 31 May - Mary River Wilderness Retreat to Darwin, 105 km; total towed: 4 805 km

21-33 degC, a little more humid in Darwin

One of our latest departures on this trip - 9am, only because we knew we had so little distance to travel. We stopped at Humpty Doo for mornos; bought a sticky bun and a quiche from the bakery but couldn't see a coffee shop so brewed up in the van.

We were set up on site #469 at Hidden Valley Holiday Park about 11:30 am. We would have been set up a few minutes earlier had Wendy read the park map correctly; Greg did an awsome job of reversing into a really tight spot between a fire hydrant a a couple of trees, only to be told that our site was around the corner. Not happy, Jan!

We then drove into to Palmerston for lunch and to restock the van with essentials. After restocking the van, we went back into Palmerston for our first COVID-19 jabs. The whole process was quite painless really, well, apart from the on-line booking process which was really time consuming. Wendy booked these appointments about 10 days ago. We then had to go to Bunnings, well just because. So, while we were there, we bought some more van essentials.

Instead of going straight home, we took a drive into Darwin City to the Stokes Hill Wharf precinct. It still has a myriad eateries as well as numerous cruise options - fast boat, slow boat, swamp boat, surfski, just to name a few. A drive through Darwin's main entertainment street brought back some memories, took us to the road out of town back to the van park.

We just happen to be in Darwin right in the middle of the annual RAAF Exercise Arnhem Thunder 2021. The aircraft that are participating from Darwin are the F-35A Lightning II, (first live sighting of the JSF) F/A-18F Super Hornet, EA-18G Growler, KC-30 Tanker Transport, and E-7A Wedgetail. This van park is right on the edge of the flight path, and the noise when they take-off is amazing. Yes, it is deafening, but it is also an awesome sound; imagine having the job of flying one of those aircraft; Wendy imagines the pilots saying "whooohooooo!!!!" as they take off. According to the internet, if the flying operations this week are the same as last week, we can expect to be awake until about 10:30 pm for the next week. We will try and video them sometime during the day so you too can experience that sound.