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.................