Evolving in Darwin...
I am so very, VERY annoyed and upset right now!
I've just been to pick up my 5 rolls of film that were being processed, and in an unapologetic way I was informed that the machine malfunctioned on 2 of my rolls, trapping the film and overexposing them to the developing fluid. So in short, they're TOTALLY ruined. Not even nearly salvageable. I'm absolutely distraught cos that's more than 50 photos - from Surfer's Paradise, Brisbane, Mooloolaba, Noosa, Hervey Bay, Airlie Beach and Magnetic Island. I could always substitute them with Claire's but it's hardly the same. I've lost my skydiving photos, the one of me with David and Linda, the one of us all in a circle looking down at the camera in Noosa, all of us on the beach at Noosa, my sunrise over Magnetic Island, and all the ones from our last night in Airlie. I"m SO annoyed! And to make matters worse, the ones that managed to survive the photo-eating monstrosity turned out blue. Which they blamed on my camera. Needless to say I refused to pay for them.
So to be honest I'm not in the best of spirits at present. But it would be unfair to not tell you what I've been up to just cos I'm in a bad mood.
On Thursday we had a mooch around the shops in Darwin, which didn't take long as it's a small city centre. We then strolled down to Bicenntenial Park on the esplanade, and nearly walked down to Lameroo Beach, until we heard the sound of Aborigines down there and got scared and ran off! Then after walking to the Cenotaph we walked back to the hostel through town, stopping at the book exchange, just in case we saw anything else to add to our mounting library. Which we did - "Memoirs of a Geisha" and "Life of Pi". So we now have 6 books between us for the long journey down the middle! Then we did some much needed food shopping and spent the whole of the afternoon chilling at the hostel, in all of their 2 spas and 1 pool!
Yesterday we had a busy day. We went to get the bus to The Museum and Art Gallery of Northern Territory at about 9:30, to be told that you cannot buy a day ticket on the bus, but at the bus terminal only, which was "just down there". Well it wasn't "just down there" at all, it was a ten minute walk away, which is a long time in the heat! So after we finally got on the bus we made our way to the amusingly named Fannie Bay, where the museum was.
It was free entry, which was good, and they had a good display of Indigenous Art. They also had a stuffed crocodile on display, which was bigger than Gregory at Innisfail. It was aptly named 'Sweetheart', and was 5m long and 480kg. The story behind him was that in the 1970's he used to attack fishing boats, so in 1979 they decided to haul him out and ship him off to the nearby croc farm in Berrimah. However, the anaesthetic they used was nowhere near strong enough, and he ended up getting entangled with a log and drowned, since his underwater breathing systems had shut down. He was then sent off to the taxidermist at the museum and put on display as a part of Territory History.
They also had an unnerving display of 4 types of box jellyfish. I didn't even know there were 4 types. And one of them was tiny - the size of your thumbnail. Me and Claire have always been debating throughout this trip "But why does it need to be able to kill a human? How does it manage to kill you in 3 minutes???" Our questions were answered (or at least the latter one) at the museum. The long, stringy tentacles of the box jellyfish (probably about 15-20 inches on the biggest ones) are covered in stinging cells, and - get this - 1000 of these stinging cells would fit onto the head of a pin. So imagine how many cells are on a 15 inch long tentacle. Doesn't bare thinking about.
They also had exhibitions on landscape art and Australian Prisoners of War, but the most prominent was the exhibition on Australia's worst recorded natural disaster yet, Cyclone Tracy, which hit the city of Darwin during the night of Christmas Eve 1974. The cyclone had windspeeds so fast that they broke the windspeed measuring equipment at Darwin Airport (but they estimate they reached a high of 260km/h), and it left 48,000 people homeless - 26,000 having to be airlifted to the southern cities for relocation. They had a video of footage shot by an ABC reporter of the streets of Darwin on Christmas Day and it was a mess. There were houses just flattened and streets full of debris and sheets of corrugated iron scattered everywhere. It was horrid. They also had aerial photos of Darwin in November 1974, January 1974 and sometime in 1994. The difference was amazing. In the November one the streets, houses and trees had distinct outlines, whereas in the January one it just looked totally messy and flattened. The worst was a timeline thing that they had - like a walkaround Darwin through the ages. It was only small, just relaying the styles of the houses before and after the cyclone, but to get round you had to "walk through" the cyclone, which was a small, pitch black room with sounds of the cyclone playing loudly - recorded by a priest at the time. That was awful, I couldn't stay in for longer than a few seconds. You could hear the metal sheets scraping down the street and the people shouting. Not nice.
After that we walked back down to the bus stop to get the bus down to Casuarina Shopping Centre. That was an experience. A lot of Aborigines were on the bus and one guy looked like he was harrassing one of the women, but none of the locals let her sit next to them instead when she asked to. So we didn't dare ask her if she wanted our seat cos in a situation like that we felt we had to take our lead from the locals, and assume that whatever they display is socially acceptable. Plus the fact that we didn't want the guy to have a grudge against us. It was a funny situation and I was very relieved when the bus pulled into the mall.
After some shopping it was getting on for 3pm and we'd had no dinner, so we decided to come back. We wanted to go to Rapid Creek market that night but we were just so exhausted, we stayed and chilled out for the rest of the afternoon. You just can't do a lot in this heat or you end up totally drained. Instead we made a make-shift pasta carbonara dish out of a sauce meant for a potato bake, and it was very tasty! And feasted on rose wine and Three Wishes chocolate (Cadbury's Chocolate that has three layers - dairy milk, white chocolate and dark chocolate- yum!). The worst part was choosing to eat it outside and having to try and ignore the fact that we were sweating buckets!
Today we got up early to get the 8:35 bus to Parap Market, the Saturday Market here in Darwin. The stalls were predominantly food stalls, most of which were South-East Asian Takeaway food or fruit and vegetables. The smells were fantastic - fresh fruit and battered meat - yum! We came across a fruit stall selling something called 'Dragon Fruit'. It was about 4 inches long, pink/red and quite thick, and it had unusual, thin thorn-type things coming out of it. We tried some and the inside was like mushy kiwi-fruit, but pretty tasteless. They also had this other weird fruits called 'Rambutans' (I think), and this were like Lychees but had green thorny-type things coming out of them, like hairs. These had a hard shell and a flesh in the middle that surrounded a seed. The flesh was a bit like grape but harder and not juicy. We bought two of these cos we felt guilty for having free samples and not buying anything! Then after looking around the few clothes and craft stalls, and buying some fisherman pants (really baggy - good for covering up and keeping cool) and a long cotton top (for covering up down the middle), I fell victim to the temptation of the fried Thai food, and bought a chicken satay stick and a prawn dumpling stick. They were both delicious (maybe not as a mid-morning snack, but hey!) and I do not regret them one bit!
After we'd seen all we could, we moseyed on back to the road to find the bus stop, and had one guy offering us a lift (yeh right! I might look stupid...). Then we came back to town and my whole world was destroyed as soon as I walked in the photo shop!
So what now? Well, as far as the photos are concerned I can't really do much. I might see if some of the guys from the East Coast wouldn't mind emailing me some of theirs, but it's just not the same. I'm so annoyed. The only upside (and believe me - it's measly!) is that I have my blog, my journal, and the pictures in my head. And at least the blueness of the photos I have got make Lake Mackenzie look really good! It's just a shame that a massive fraction of my East Coast travels has been taken away from me and I can't show it to you guys. It's annoying as well cos all the photos Claire has on her digital camera are views rather than memories, and the ones she took on her disposable of our nights out are all of her! So even though I've got reprints of those they're still not my photos. I'm so gutted I can't even explain.
As far as the rest of today is concerned, we're going to phone Alice Springs to book our accommodation and our proposed Balloon Flight (gonna be going into my overdraft by Adelaide I reckon!), then just have a laze. We have to go to bed really early too as we have to be up at 5am tomorrow to catch the Adventure Tours bus. Tried ringing home again last night - second time I've done so and Mum's not been able to talk to me. Not spoken to anyone at home since before the Whitsundays, and won't be able to until Alice Springs if I don't tonight. So please be in!
Other than that, there's not much else to report! I'm gonna go and cry over my lost memories now and complain how Claire's are rubbish in comparison! *sob!*