The van saga continues...
Trip Start
Apr 10, 2005
1
71
90
Trip End
Dec 09, 2006
Darwin,
Australia
Friday, July 28, 2006
The v-dub mechanic got it up and running for us again earlier this month but basically told us we'd be stupid to attempt to drive it down WA. There are still far too many problems with it, like the bolt rattling around near the engine, we reckon from the bodge job at Daly Waters, cowboys
Better then a spa!
! He quoted over a $1,000 just for that, money we aren't willing to pay with only 2 months left. His fears were confirmed when we broke down again while on a day trip to Litchfield National Park, 90km from Darwin. Stimpy let out a few more rattles, gurgles and a scarily loud bang, which I think people may have heard in Darwin and decided she had finally had enough, leaving us stranded for the night. From this we can take a massive lesson in life - yeah don't buy a dodgy v-dub to drive around Australia!!!! Seriously though, we aren't going to dwell on this even though it has caused us so much stress. I think we pretty much gathered a while back that we would be concluding our journey of Australia in Darwin. Now at least we can go back to Asia for 3 months, which lets be honest has so much more culture and diversity to it and carry on the adventures.Van issues aside, Darwin hasn't been too bad a place to live, there hasn't been a drop of rain and the days average at 26-30°c with nice cool evenings, lucky for us as I think we'd melt in the van. Living in a campsite is not the ideal situation, like our irritating neighbours who just don't understand personal space but we're getting by. We managed to blag ourselves a 51cm TV, which looks ridiculous in our tiny van and glows around the whole campsite at night but hey were not complaining. Some old dude (Robbie) got the TV free with a mobile phone and I think Matt went on so much about the World Cup (which was on at stupid times in the morning here) that Robbie sold it to us for a 'sixer' of beer - typical Aussie
Crikey, I hope there's no crocs in here!
! He had a TV already of course. Imagine how happy Matt was to be able to watch the World Cup, although we were pretty annoyed having got up at 4am to watch England crash out on penalties to Portugal. The hardest part of camp life is having different people walk in and out of our lives every day - a difficult reminder of just how long we have been here, we call them our 5 minutes friends! We now spend a lot of time with a lovely German couple, Arno & Eva, they are extremely amusing and share our love of red wine and cheese. We will definitely be making a trip to Deutschland next year.Life has become pretty routine, working, working, working. Matt is on his 8th job, now working for Avis car rentals cleaning and moving cars, not bad when he earns $30 an hour at weekends. I've just finished my second 4 week role for the Australian Government as a PA, so it's all good. We've both had our birthdays this month and splurged on some evenings out, we even stretched to a chocolate cake each, now that's love!
With such great weather all the time, there's always something outdoorsy to do in and around Darwin. We have often been down to the local outdoor pool or to the beach to have picnics or bbqs. It's a bit of a pain but you can't swim in the sea here due to all the crocs, sharks, sea snakes and jelly fish to name a few!
Dodgy fellas
! Berry Springs has been our favourite escape from city life, with its natural swimming holes in the middle of woodland. We were a bit sceptical of swimming at first after seeing the crocodile safety sign. If there were 'salties' you obviously wouldn't be able to swim but we've been told that there were probably fresh water crocodiles lurking in the waters depths. They are much smaller, less territorial and only attack if you annoy them supposedly, still not really what you want to be hearing before a swim. The only thing that did decide to attack us were the little cleaner fish, who nimbled away at the our dead skin (yuk), which gives you a strange almost electric shock like feeling,very odd. A refreshing dip all the same. As mentioned, we headed down to Litchfield National Park recently and despite Stimpy playing up it was a really lovely day out. Mainly made up of nice waterfalls and fresh swimming holes. We took a picnic with us, our 'swimmers' and just let everything else slip from our minds enjoying the natural beauty surrounding us.
It's not all been bad! ; )
