Darwin the Time Warp

I have been trying to do this blog for about 2 weeks now but there has been either big queues in the Internet cafe, Internet crashing, forgetting to put pics on a dongle or just generally being too busy has stopped me but I'm here now. :-)

So the longer we have stayed in Darwin the stranger we find it. It really is a place lost in a time warp. The general mentality seems to be women have the jobs where you serve the men and look pretty after they have had a hard day grafting. Wals struggling like mad to get a job in a bar basically because he's a guy. 
Everything but the pub seems to be closed on a Sunday, there are no shopping centres, buses stop about 11pm so you can't get anywhere late on, and the Aboriginals are still very much classed as secondary citizens. Mind you, the Aboriginals that live in Darwin really don't do themselves any favours. Every one I have seen seems to live in the park and is drunk. The women and men have full on fist fights with each other, shout, swear, and just generally act like morons. I have not seen one of them working anywhere. It's really sad because I know not all of them are like that but the ones here just paint a really bad picture. I was walking through the city the other day when a drunk Aboriginal just started coming towards me with his hands out and I actually had to slap him away. Was a bit freaky........ maybe he just wanted a hug.

  Darwin is classed as a city but it's more like a large town. It has a population of about 100,000, and the closest KFC and Hungry Jacks (Burger King to those from Blighty) is a 30minute bus ride away. Not that I base how big cities are in relation to if they have fast food chains but you know what I mean!

Tiny Darwin

 As there aren't many shops in the city apart from souvenir shops, it's a 30 minute trip to the 'Biggest Shopping Centre in the Northern Territory' which is slightly bigger than White Rose centre in Leeds so I was a little shocked when I arrived in full shopping mode. Oh well, it stops my bad spending habit I guess. 

I think before we came to Darwin we expected a bit more but despite that I do like it.

It has some great chill out spots, an outdoor deckchair cinema (which hopefully we are going to go to soon), good pubs, and a great beach market twice a week where you can go and get some amazing food, see some crazy street performers, and watch the sun go down. Most people seem to just go to get drunk so it has kind of a small festival feel to it. I had some fantastic pictures of the the sunset and the market but being the idiot I am I accidently deleted most of them off the camera. Just means I have have to go again I guess............damn shame. 

A photo of Wal at Mindill Market that I managed to save!

Mindill Beach Sunset

Weird scary dolls for sale at Mindill Market

 The pictures I am gutted I deleted is of me with a snake wrapped around my neck! It was a cobra and was so amazing. I swear it happened but now I have no proof.

I also wrestled a crocodile, swam with a shark and had a boxing fight with a Kangaroo. Don't believe me?? Nah I wouldn't either................ the snake part is true though. Gutted.

I would say that I deleted pictures from my birthday too but me and Wal were actually way too drunk to take any! ha! Through the many jugs of beer and Jagerbombs I vaguely remember having a good night and woke up the next morning with a half eaten pizza which the ants in our room had so kindly decided to devour. 
Cheers to everyone for the birthday messages, was much appreciated being so far away...............
And a big thanks to Lou too who sent me a 'Hull' T-shirt which I promise to wear proudly. :-)

Oh so proud

The V8's came to Darwin last weekend and Wal managed to blag us free weekend tickets being the good boy that he is. There were loads of different car races on, vintage cars, Utes and our passes let us go into the paddocks to see all the huge transport trucks and cars and also into the pits. Again, we had loads of pictures but they where on my delete list so we have absolutely nothing to show for it. Boo.

 There was a concert on in the evening where INXS where playing live. Note again Darwin lives in a time warp so I was half expecting Michael Hutchence to come out. 

Michael is still alive in Darwin

 We never actually got to see who did come out though as we got extremely bored waiting for them as their opening act was a bloody magician???

We couldn't believe it! Who puts a magician on at a rock concert........oh yeah, Darwin does! Madness. 
The only way I would have been impressed was if he could have made Michael Hutchence appear on stage but as his opening line was 'Pick a card any card' I didn't have much hope. 

Pick a Card.......any card

 Other things to happen this week are we finally moved out of the cell in the backpackers and into an apartment which is sooooo much better AND cheaper! No more outdoor TV, no more annoying early morning conversations on the way to make my cup of tea, no more sharing my room with a hundred ants............awesome.

We moved from this.................

.........to this! Awesome.

Work have moved me onto day shifts so no more late nights and more hours which is good, I am actually missing doing the nights though as I get on really well with all the night girls and guys so we'll see how it goes, I may ask if I can do half and half but we'll see.

I had a night out with Marian and Lisa from Shags (Shenannigan's) which was really good. We went to Ladies Night at Monsoons, free vodka served by topless men. Bonus! It was a bit cheesy to be honest but it was free so I'm not complaining!

Me, Marian and Lisa

 After chatting with Marian who's from Wembley we discovered that not only did we live a few streets away from each other in Leeds but we also went to the same slimming world group. (Yes Kate, she knows Kim! Ha!). Weird how you can move to the other side of the world and end up working and being friends with someone you never met when they practically lived next door to you back home!

 So after a few more drinks and cheeky shots, the night ended with a good hearty meal of Pie, Chips and Mushy peas.

Oh you can take the girl out of Hull.................

Time Served

A lot to tell as I've been a bit slack on the old Blog front so here goes...........

Finally finally finally we have served our 88 day wwoofing sentence! Freedom is ours at last. Such a relief knowing that we can carry on with our travels and stop worrying about visa's. I got the paperwork in the post literally 30 mins after we clocked off and I got me an extended visa within 3 days! 

Thank you kindly Aussie Government.

So as well as moving on from Mount Tambo we had a good time celebrating Wally turning the grand old age of 30! I think he was a little sad that such a big birthday wasn't celebrated with friends and family back home but we still had a good time.
The celebrations started the night before his birthday with a party at Sandy's. It was Tony's birthday on the same day too so double cake! We had a fair amount of beer and wine and a huge Moroccan meal that was damn tasty.

The Birthday Boys

We couldn't party too late though as we where up at 5.30 in the morning to head off to the Gold Coast for the weekend. 2 nights in Coolangatta and a night in Surfers.

The hostel in Coolangatta was a bit of a pain as it was actually about 40 minutes walk out of the town centre and we had to faff around getting all sorts of buses and shuttles to get there so Wal was very upset that his 1st birthday beer wasn't sunk until after lunchtime! But we managed to find a pub route back into Coolangatta so it wasn't all bad.

Wally enjoying his 1st Birthday Beer of the day!

Wally drinking and listening to Tangaroa at the same time!

I think I was actually more drunk than Wal (which isn't hard to believe) and we had a pretty good day. Met some crazy locals in the pub, had some good Thai food, and finished off with a bottle of pop back at the Hostel. Happy days.

 A shuttle back to Town on Friday to hit the Tattoo Convention that we had been looking forward too.
It was pretty good but so small. We kind of saw everything in about an hour which was a bit disappointing. Some amazing tattooists there though. Really wanted to get one done but the funds are low at the minute so the better side of me decided to wait until another time!
There isn't a whole lot to do in Coolangatta when the sun goes down except drink and eat........so that's what we did. $5 bottle of wine each back at the hostel, slapped on some fake tattoo's that we got at the convention and got good and full at Pizza Hut's all you can eat buffet. Classy.

Looking hard with his new tattoo's..........

Looking harder with mine....................

 We got to Surfers Paradise on Saturday which was a lot more lively. Just wandered around taking it all in really. Nice and relaxed. Had me and awesome Gelato whilst watching a crazy Asian man singing and playing his guitar whilst doing one handed push-ups then breaking out his num-chucks and busting some moves. His monotone rendition of Men at works 'Land down under' mixed with Rock around the clock was pretty impressive.

I love Gelato!

Crazy singing, guitar, push-up man.....

 Early night again as we where getting the 8.30am bus back to Tambo so we where in bed for about 9pm which is pretty sad in Surfers on a Saturday night! Getting old....................

So after our last 3 days wwoofing we said our goodbyes to Sandy and Cliff and decided to have a night in Brisbane. We booked into a hostel in the West End and it's a pretty cool little place. The hostel is really good, and the people friendly. The west end has kind of a Bohemian Vibe to it, lots of small bars, cafes shops, hippie's and students. I like it which I'm glad about as Brisbane didn't impress me much last time.

We had a chilled out day wandering around the city, the museums and art galleries, China Town and Southbank which unfortunately had been badly damaged from the floods but when in it's glory is a man made beach, rain forest and lagoon type place that's a bit random in the middle of a busy city but quite pretty. 

Little me next to the worlds tallest man!

Wally next to a Hobbit

 We had a 9pm flight to Darwin which meant we didn't land until 12.30am so straight to the Backpackers and to bed!

The Backpackers place we are staying at is a bit weird. We have a double room so no sharing with randoms which is good but it looks just like a prison cell. Big brick painted walls, a bed, a TV and a fridge and that's it. No tables, drawers or anywhere to hang your clothes! But it's cheap compared to everywhere else so can't be picky really.........

There are some strange folk living there too........middle aged men who share a tent around the back and just sit and watch TV (which is outside under a tent type cover) all day and a small drunk Asian man who just laughs constantly?? Proper hicks-ville.

The hostel also overlooks a small park that a lot of the local aboriginals seem to live in and just get drunk and argue all day.  We saw a full on fight between a male and female aboriginal which was pretty weird but they seem to think it's just normal!

Darwin city itself is really small, probably about the same size as Bridlington then with some surrounding suburbs. It's a really pretty city though and has a cool man made beach area where you can go for a swim without the fear of being eaten by a croc but you may still get stung by a jelly-fish......think I'll just paddle.

Darwin's man-made lagoon

 The local news here can be quite amusing too, Headlining the newspaper was 'Local Chook traumatises Tourists'. Pretty amusing. Everyone is quite chilled out (prob due to the heat) and even when they are mad it's seems to be done with a bit of humour.

Be afraid.........be very afraid.......................

Sign in the newsagents

It's quite expensive here though, more so than Sydney, so we have had to sort out work pretty quick. 

I managed to get a job at a Tapas restaurant called Moorish but decided I didn't like it after about 30 minutes. I'm just not very good at being a waitress I don't think and I really just don't like it So following a second shift and 4 smashed glasses I managed to get a job at the local Irish Pub (Shenannigan's) and got me a new job. Better money, better atmosphere and working the Bar so no more waiting tables! Awesome. 

Wally is struggling to find a job though mainly as Aussie (especially Darwin) can be really sexist when it comes to Bar work and as he's not female and doesn't have boobs they just don;t seem to want to employ you!

He's managed to get some labouring work for about 10 days and trying to sort something else out in the meantime. Fingers crossed!

So that's it so far folks, hope it was fun for you.
My final thoughts........"I hear it's someones Birthday tomorrow???"

Awesome Cake! Selleck is the man!