Life in Darwin has been pretty interesting. The weather hasn't been too bad considering what we've heard about it, it's not as bad as the weather in northern inland Australia and is pretty bearable most of the time (we're in air conditioning most of the time though).
Since the last blog update we've done too much to write about... We've spent most weekends at Mindil beach markets trying the different food stalls, but it shut down over the wet recently, so we've migrated over to some local farmers markets at rapid creek which are even better. We've also been eating out way too much. It's been great.
Darwin is really big on markets. Fruit and veg grows really easily up here and is real cheap. The large population of people from south east asia also gives it some great food, and they also grow some interesting veggies at the farmers markets.
Mindil beach sunset at Mindil markets
We headed down to Litchfield national park one weekend with our friend Hyso who lives up here. Litchfield was pretty cool, but had a lot of tourists in it because of it's close proximity to Darwin. We did a few rock jumps and swam in the multiple lagoons at Litchfield and drank a lot of Melbourne bitter (the beer of Darwin aswell) It was a great day.
Swimming tourists
Litchfield waterhole
We've also been getting to know the locals of Darwin and generally just hanging around with Hyso. It's been pretty good. Here's a picture of Hyso's pet snake Brian, an A class reptile in my book, definitely the friendliest snake I've met.
Brian the snake
We've also headed out to the local rodeo, and seen some cowboys get seriously injured riding bulls and horses. That was a great night, unfortunately I had to work my first Sunday shift the next day, so we couldn't stick around for the amateur drunken boxing or the end round of the Rodeo.. Goddam reality... Only 5 months till we're on the road again...
Dude falling off a bull
Dude falling off a horse
A bull intimidating the rodeo clown and staring off the crowd
We had the best seats in the place, we sat ringside with fold out chairs and got to see people coming off right at our feet. It was great. The Ambulance had to be called in for a dude who got hoofed in the head by a bull, and I'm pretty sure there were a few broken arms. It seemed like every second person had to limp away, some of them looking pretty injured. And there were a lot of cowboys on crutches or with arm casts on walking around. The animals didn't seem to mind TOO much either, the horses were pretty freaked out and were pretty retarded, but the bulls knew they were completely in control.
Apparently we got the last rodeo for the season, everything seems to shut down over the wet. Everything except mud racing that is... We might go to our first one this weekend.
It's definitely a town full of Bogans up here, but if you can embrace being a bogan I think you can get a lot more enjoyment out of life than if you were a retro Melbournite or a health nut or a muso or something like that.
It's hard to let yourself get into it when you've been educated your whole life, but I think they really do have the most fun out of all the subcultures in Australia.
If only life had turned out different and I was missing a few teeth...
We have also started renovations on the bus. It's getting a complete overhaul while we're stationary, with a new interior and a new clutch. I've also kinda repaired the bike holder aswell, and am gonna put swivel chairs in the front (We ran into an old Jehovah's witness who'd done it in his coaster and he told us how to do it cheap).
I've also attempted repairs on the old XR motorbike and took the cam cover off and rocker cam's and cam-chain and junk in an attempt to re-torque the head to stop all the oil leaking.
This was really a bad idea from the start, the head was torqued perfectly fine already and by taking the bike apart I managed to completely destroy it...
So, instead of paying to fix this piece of crap bike I got a new one from Army auctions. A 2000 model XR250 for only $2300. So now we have 2 XR's, and I'm starting to cannabilise the old one for parts which will be handy on the road.
The new reliable XR250, I'm pretty sure it would have done a tour of afghanistan, it looks like it's been around the block
As far as Reno's go, we've stripped out the single bed and started a dining area using ply and some floating floorboards from Bunning's for a tabletop and some vinyl from spotlight to upholster a Chaise lounge with the remaining floor space. We've got so much more storage now it's crazy, and it looks remarkably professional.
The new dining table (I didn't bother cleaning all the crap off for the photo
The Chaise Lounge
As far as breakdowns are concerned I think we've only had the one since getting to Darwin, (Burst radiator cap). Luckily we were running on autogas so when the engine got too hot it just cut out because the gas evaporated too fast to reach the engine, which stopped any damage occurring to the engine from getting too hot. Of course it cut out on one of the busiest roads in front of the largest shopping centres in Darwin.
But that's always been how the bus rolls.
Anyway, probably won't update the blog that much while working, it's a holiday blog really and shouldn't be updated too much with stories about work..
