So we sent to the land down under; where vegemite does flow and wombats blunder. It seems easy now, travelling there. But ye gods, what a journey! We were up at 3 am, ‘smiled’ stoically at the stormy Bergen-weather lashing rain against our skylights and staggered backpacker-style to the airport bus. In London the tube was, astoundingly, not in service due to a strike. We went to Katrine’s mother and stepfather’s house in Chiswick to await our evening flight to Oz.
The 13 hour flight to Singapore was uneventful enough. We had a very decent curry for dinner and did lots of sleeping – you know, the kind where your arms are folded, your head is slightly tilted backwards and you wake up every now and then to see whether you’ve been drooling or not. There wasn’t much else to do since the BLOODY ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM WAS DOWN. There you are, staring at a black screen inches from your nose for 13 hours when you could have had films, music, games and whatnot the entire time. Ach. Oh, and Katrine was walloped around the head twice by people who were probably quite anxious to get to the restroom and therefore too busy to apologize. 13 hours summed up.
In Singapore we had a so-so Indian and Cantonese dinner, but a very good smoothie. We had about five hours to kill and nothing lethal so we walked around for a bit and then sat for a spell and time went by. I would like to take this opportunity, however, to tell you this: As I was in the restroom washing my hands a Chinese guy walked in, talking on his mobile. He walked over the general urinal area but stopped in front of a (quite obvious) rubbish bin, about navel-high, in metal, with a square gap in front. Still engrossed in his conversation, he started pulling on his trousers to reveal a pair of tighty-whities. But, I had finished my washing and had to tear my eyes away from this potentially impending sticky situation. Once out of the restroom I had a brief dialogue with two conflicting parts of my brain, which the part that watches South Park and films with Will Ferrell won, and I rushed back in only to discover that the man was now washing his hands… And I will never, ever know what happened.
Anyway, the next flight took almost five hours. In this case, the seats were ergonomically designed for a whiplash-like neck position. We didn’t sleep. Then, finally, we landed in Darwin. As we exited the small plane by way of a staircase onto the runway we were struck by the heat which we presumed to come from the aircraft’s engines. We soon realized that, even at 4:30 in the morning, Darwin is one frakking hot place!
(Thank you for bearing with me so far.)
6-9 October: Darwin
With a population of 124,800 Darwin is the most northerly of the Australian capital cities and has an average temperature of about 30 °C in October. We arrived at our hostel, the Melaleuca on Mitchell, at about 5:30 am only to be met with a lecture on how you have to book a room a day earlier if you’re showing up at 5:30 am, ‘because let me tell you a little something about how the world of hostels works.’ That’s all very well, and he was quite right of course, but we had just gotten off the plane after a 25 hour journey, hadn’t slept much and instantly hated his guts. We could leave our luggage there and come back at noon. Because of this, we managed to explore the nearby esplanade and Bicentennial Park quite thoroughly, reading countless signs about the local Larrakia people and war memorials about the ANZAC forces, WWII battles off Darwin and bombings of Darwin.
The hostel itself was dirty, the bed (we had a room all to ourselves) hard and the vital air conditioner noisy. We must admit, however, that we have discovered ourselves to be a bit like a bitter old couple when it comes to things like this, with no patience for noisy people, dirty accommodation etc. Then again, I did find $5 on the bottom of the swimming pool. That evening we went to the outdoors Deckchair Cinema, which is by the coast in a little grove. It has deckchairs to sit on, hot food (we had very tasty yellow curry) and a big screen. As soon as the sun sets the film starts and there you sit, under a starry sky accompanied by the occasional bat. We saw Das weiße Band, Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte, a very dark, black and white German drama from 2009 about the creepy happenings in a little village just before WWI. I can strongly recommend it.
The second day (yes, this will be long, hence the ‘part 1’) we went by bus to Crocodylus Park where we had a very informative tour, learning about the ferocious crocodiles they have there (‘Doin’t stick yer hand through the fence, because these crocs WILL jump out of the wodder and boite it off!’). Apparently, saltwater crocs are the most dangerous. They can become five to six meters in length, have a bite force equivalent to two cars going 50 km/h crashing and consider humans to be a very decent snack. We walked onto a walkway over a range of breeding pens to feed some of the more aggressive crocodilians. Many had missing bits of their body, sometimes even whole limbs, due to fighting. The tour ended with us being allowed to hold a baby crocodile. It was surprisingly soft, sort of rubbery, warm and docile (though its snout was taped shut). There was also a small unnerving museum with many graphic stories and even photos of the history of human-croc interaction. At the end I had a croc-burger. It had a texture similar to Thai fishcakes and tasted slightly fishy. The reason why the park sells crocodile leather and meat, they told us, is because they need the money to fund their very important research which has bettered the understanding between humans and crocodiles (well, let’s just say on the part of humans anyway) and increased the number of crocodiles to where they are no longer threatened by extinction. We were quite impressed by the respect and love these people have for crocodilians. After a long walk, during sudden heavy rainfall, we found the bus back.
Our final day in Darwin began with someone having the audacity to steal Katrine’s bikini which hang outside to dry. Doing nothing much that day, we had breakfast and did a little reading on the esplanade where Katrine was asked by some boys if they could take a picture of her… She gracefully declined. After reading about a restaurant called Crustaceans on the Lonely Planet website we wanted to try it out. Unfortunately, we had the ‘mixed seafood platter for two’ which, although it contained lobster, king prawns, oysters, deep fried fish and calamari, was rather tasteless. This was crowned by a seagull decorating Katrine’s thrupenny bits… We finished the day with another film at the Deckchair Cinema (South Solitary, Australian, alright enough) during which it started to rain. On the whole, Darwin is a bit dull, but the Deckchair Cinema, Crocodylus Park and, apparently, Kakadu National Park (for which we had no time) are very recommended.
9-10 October: the Ghan
We travelled to Alice Springs by railroad, namely the Ghan, so named in respect for the Afghan camel riders who made important contributions to opening up and connecting Australia. The train made a few hours’ stop at a little place called Katherine (pop. approx. 1100, many of whom are indigenous). Here, eighties and country music was helpfully played over public speakers. And that is about all there is to say about Katherine. When the bus driver drove us back to the Ghan, he offered to drop us off at the very scenic Springvale Homestead, the oldest original homestead in the Northern Territory (1879) (and where we saw a bunch of wallabies!) while he made another run for the remaining passengers. He was a very informative guide while driving the bus and the type of man who would point to a large rock and say ‘guess how much that stone weighs. One stone.’ Also, he told us of the reason why there are no sheep in that area: the local black spear grass leaves its seeds on the wool of the sheep. There they burrow down until they reach the flesh, causing an anguishing death. On other animals they simply fall off. Back on the train we had a bit to eat and tried to sleep in our sleeper chairs. The next day we awoke to a beautiful sunrise over the red-and-green outback and several hours later we rolled into Alice Springs.
(Part 2 to follow soon.)
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