Farewell to Aus
Trip Start
Nov 13, 2006
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Trip End
May 13, 2007
Our last full day in Australia was filled with all the usual administrative tasks of loading ourselves up with shopping and last minute souvenirs, exchanging our read books for new ones and posting a selection of parcels back to the UK in a never ending quest to reduce the weight of our packs. That evening we took a final walk down to Stokes Hill Wharf which looks out onto Darwin's harbour and is filled with fish and chip stalls selling the local Barramundi and other seafood snacks. The walk to the wharf was made even more interesting by the roadworks going on at the time, causing huge pools of mud on the ground and no obvious pedestrian walkway The result of this was that I arrived at the wharf with feet speckled with brown dots and nearly minus a flip flop. Luckily this didn't put me off my food and we were soon tucking into freshly caught, lightly battered fish and in my case calamari and prawns too. It was already dark and the lights of the many boats in the harbour shone out in the distance. Schools of huge fish also began to congregate near the edge of the wharf in the hope that a tasty morsel would be thrown over by one of the many diners. We stayed for a while gazing out at the black ocean and reflecting on our time in Australia. It had been a hectic few weeks filled with many good memories, beautiful scenery, fun cities, dramatic coastlines and endless deserts. The highlights had been the two extremes the country had to offer. The contrast between the cosmopolitan and bustling cities of Sydney and Melbourne and the remote and isolated northern territory sites of Kakadu and Uluru. We had already become accustomed to the heat of the tropics and now felt a new sense of excitement at visiting countries with environments, customs and languages different to our own.
