Top End Travels - Darwin 1

Monday 20 May 2019

I'm heading on a trip along the Savannah Way to see lots of places and things that Surrey often talked about, having done numerous collecting trips in the area. Each leg of the journey can be found on the map below and the references on each blog entry will be given as well. Each picture can be seen in full screen by clicking on the first one (not the map) and scrolling through.

Map of My Journey - Darwin to Cairns - Click this link to see the map larger in Google Maps

A quick trip to the airport with Uber to be met by a jammed baggage handling system then huge queues for the security check-in. My hip pinged the xray so I had to remove shoes and have a pat down. Eventually I got though and headed for some breakfast before going to the gate to wait for Karen and Alastair who will be my travelling companions on the Outback Spirit adventure.

The flight was mostly smooth. I had a window seat on the western side of the plane next to a mechanical engineer who was really interested in what I was watching out the window - the fantastic sight of the water coming down the rivers then the channel country from the north.

Near Bourke

Channel Country

Is this a fracking site?

Coming into Darwin

After a long time collecting our car we made our way to City Garden Apartments and dumped our bags before heading back out to find some food for "lunch". It was about 3:30 and everything was shut. We eventually found a smoothie for Karen and I which hit the spot well.

Karen and I then enjoyed some time at a fabric shop - Paperbark Woman - which stocks all aboriginal designed fabrics for quilters. I was really good and only bought two pieces. The shop is amazing with all sorts of designs I have not seen before.

After a short rest at the apartment we headed for the waterfront and pier for dinner. After negotiating a few un-signposted roundabouts and detours and difficult parking spots we found somewhere for our fish.seafood dinner sitting next to the water where fish and seagulls were very actively feeding on diners' scraps. The moon was just after full and rose large and brilliant red-orange while we ate.