Around Oz with the Munchkins: Hiding the poppets in sweaty tropical Darwin

Darwin had long been a much anticipated destination for all of us for various reasons – memories of great Asian food an mango smoothies, jumping crocodiles, big supermarkets (thanks Sash), the tropical scent of frangipani, beach-side markets and of course the fact that it is home to Bill’s lovely cousin, Tanya. We were thrilled to accept Tanya’s invitation to stay at her comfy place because as much as we love our trailer, it always feels great to be in a house. And it gave us plenty of opportunity to disrupt Tanya from her study…

Tanya had another friend staying with her – Patsy, a health worker from Utopia – and so it was a quite a crowd of us that headed down to the waterfront to sit by the water and gobble up delicious Pad Thai and Laksa on that first evening. It was lovely to sit outside in the warm air and catch up on all Tanya’s news – and to grill her about her work in Aboriginal health. It was also interesting to chat to Patsy about her community and her work with all its challenges.

Next morning we set about redecorating Tanya’s lovely house with our dusty plastic boxes, piles of dirty clothes and crusty old tarps. We’re sure she loved it! Her washing machine worked tirelessly all day while Tanya herself exhibited extraordinary patience – not only with our general chaos but also with Sasha’s constant demands to be tied up with octopus straps and to play ‘hide the poppets’ (a riveting game that involves hiding 4 small Winnie the Pooh character soft toys around the living room and making the other player find them – over and over and over again). One day when Kate and Zara were at the museum, Bill watched in total astonishment as Tanya and Sash played ‘hide the poppets’ at least 25 times in a row. Needless to say Sash fell deeply in love with his cousin and is desperately looking forward to seeing her again in Melbourne for Christmas (as long as she brings the poppets…).

Saturday was also AFL Grand Final Day and Bill was half-inclined to watch the match so we headed to Darwin’s Trailer Boat Club where we met our travelling friends Hannah, Michael, Kate and Sam. There was a great excitement in the joint as the Swans and the Hawks battled it out – with the Hawks going down in the end (Kate felt a brief twinge of sadness for her childhood suburb’s team’s loss – but then quickly remembered that she doesn’t give a fig!). A playground and pool kept the kids happy – and later they crashed some bloke’s 21^st birthday and boogied the night away on the dance-floor set up in a cordoned off area of the club. No-one seemed to really mind and Sash really cut a rug while Zara teamed up with another crazy kid and together they hooned around the tables causing general mayhem, In the evening, Tanya and Patsy joined us and we all ate a delicious dinner overlooking the beach and the beautiful Darwin sunset. After dinner Sam took the kids down to the beach on a very successful hunt for hermit crabs.

On Sunday morning we awoke in our snug little beds to the sound of the first rain of the season. We were pretty desperate to stock up on food so we didn’t eat Tanya out of house and home, so we headed out in the rain for the Rapid Creek market – a fabulous Asian-style market. We had a great time poking around the stalls and buying tropical fruits then lunching on Laksa, Vietnamese rolls and sticky rice with mango. In the afternoon, Tanya kindly took the kids around to have a swim and a play at her friend Barb’s place. Bill and Kate felt a little shellshocked by the sudden peace and so indulged as only parents-who-have-been-travelling-with-2 little-kids-for -8-months would – Bill happily tapped away uninterrupted on the computer for 2 hours and Kate read the entitre Weekend Australian – cover to cover! Heaven.

Next day, Kate and Zara checked out the excellent Darwin museum where we freaked ourselves out in the Cyclone Tracy simulator and stared down Sweetheart – the MASSIVE stuffed croc (‘terror of the rivers’) before calming ourselves down with an iced chocolate and a visit to the old Darwin jail. Meanwhile, Sash and Bill hit the Darwin waterpark – a huge area of pools, waterslides and playgrounds and it’s FREE! Amazing what the local Gov will do to keep the kids out of trouble. Who needs skateparks when you can have Wet ‘n’ Wild (well, not quite) for nothing. That night, Bill and Michael tried to revive their fishing commraderie and success at the jetty in Dawin – but nothing doing except for some interesting chats to some of Darwin’s Longrassers.

Next day, we were thrilled to take Hannah and Michael up on an offer to look after the kids for a couple of hours while we saw a movie and had lunch together. Unfortunately there was not much on at the cinema and so our romantic date consisted of pretty average shopping centre Japanese food, and THE WORST MOVIE EVER. If for any reason you are ever tempted to see ‘The Watch’ – don’t (and if you have seen it and thought it was really funny – either don’t tell me or never speak to me again!). However, despite this it was actually lovely to spend some time together and actually have a conversation. We are very very grateful to H & M for this – and just sorry that Sash took this opportunity to do his famous triple-pike-somersault-land-flat-on-my-back-on-the-concrete-at-the-bottom-of-the-waterslide trick. Poor Hannah and Michael had to mop up the tears, patch him up and then take them both home for ice-cream! It was very sad to say good-bye to Hannah and Michael at the end of the day as they were heading for Indonesia for a holiday before settling down in Darwin. We were finally heading in different directions and we knew we wouldn’t see them again for a long time.

The rest of our days in Darwin were spent indulging in all sorts of pleasant things. We bought fisherman pants and drank mango smoothies at the fabulous Mindil markets, took the kids to see Hotel Transylvania at the cinema, washed everything we owned, goggled at croc feeding and glorious big tigers at Crocodylus Park, road the waves at the local wave pool, and let the kids sit up in Tanya’s bed and watch Shrek 1 and 2. But one of the major highlights of Darwin was going to the Deckchair Cinema – a beautiful open-air cinema - where we munched on delicious smokey curries and watched a really incredible documentary made by a young Melbourne film-maker called ‘I am Eleven’. See it if you can.

On our final night in Darwin we ate Bill’s hearty cannelloni and watched the Julian Assange tele-movie – interesting in itself but weird for us because a lot of it was filmed at Bill’s parents house!

It was sad to be leaving Darwin and Tanya, but exciting to be on the road again and heading to Litchfield and beyond. Massive thanks to Tanya for her incredible hospitality and patience. We had such a wonderful time.