Darwin...still

Saturday: The people up here really like their markets. Today was Parap Village’s turn. A lot of the stalls were at Mindil Beach markets last Thursday but the focus here seemed to be on food. The majority was cooked fare, mainly Asian in flavour with a lot of things I have never heard of let alone seen. As it was really hot, we opted for cold, peeled fresh pineapple. I bought some bananas, tomatoes, mandarins and cucumber for the grand total of $5. Really good value and good produce.  We went for a walk around the waterfront precinct where there is a swimming lagoon and a man made wave pool. There are 10 minutes phases where waves up to 1.7 metres wash over the swimmers most who have flotation rings to ride the waves. It looked like great fun but we ran out of time today to have a go but hopefully tomorrow.

Took a drive to Charles Darwin National Park that overlooks the harbour and the city. The park isn’t all that big but is still dotted with WWII bomb and munition storage bunkers in the hillsides. One was open to the public so we had a browse through and checked out the display and memorabilia. It is still mind blowing the extent Darwin and surrounds was attacked during the war, especially as we were taught so little about it at school.

Finished the touristy thing today by going to Aquascene. It is a sheltered little cove that is visited by a large number and variety of fish that can be hand fed some bread. It originally started yonks ago by a local man that threw bread to the fish and they kept coming back. It was taken over and promoted and is now a protected area for all fish. It is now a popular touristy thing to go along at high tide and feed the fish. Of course I had to have a go. There were small rays, mullet, milk fish, other smaller fish that I didn’t know and huge bat fish. They are so cute, you dip bread in the water and they come up and take it out of your fingers with a schloop, schloop sound. Brian wasn’t all that fussed so just took photos. I had a lovely time feeding all the fish but the bat fish were definitely my favourite.

Sunday: Do nothing kind of day. Wandered about the old civic centre and took some snaps. Read all about the Air raids and the Cyclone. Ended up at the Waterfront Precinct in the Wave pool, which is a nice safe place to swim, especially when the waves are turned off! The waves are just too fast and short, all they do is make it impossible to stand, walk, swim or even surf. It's kind of OK to float around on one of the blow up rings though.

Snap of several days