Red Brigade: Sunsets and Politics

On Thursday I was lucky to have another flying visit from Rosie, in transit to Adelaide from Kununurra in WA. The oddness that is Darwin flight times meant Rosie was able to fly in for dinner and then out at 1am for a night flight. Apparently you know you’re a Territorian when you have to drop someone at the airport at midnight and you think its normal. I’m not quite there yet.

The weather has been threatening storms for the last two weeks, none of which has really come to fruition. These clouds greeted me on the way out of the gym Wednesday night...

Luckily Thursday night was clear so Rosie and I headed down to watch the sunset at Fannie Bay yacht club. The club has a funky little bar and tables out on the grass looking over the water. We got to watch a spectacular sunets with some lazy beers and then had a lovely meal (We both contemplated but decided against the crocodile fillet). Naturally millions of photos were taken. You can't say the NT doesn't do a good sunset. Dinner was reasonably priced and came with free salad bar! I’ll definitely be visiting again.

Yesterday marked the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Darwin Harbour back in 1942. Parliament only voted to make this a national day of significance three months ago so I think the day was extra special for everyone there. 19th February will now be known as "Bombing of Darwin day'.

Fi and I headed into town a little early and managed to get a carpark in the prime VIP area. We were very proud of ourselves – maybe we’ve been living in Sydney too long where the crowds are always astronomical. We couldn't understand why noone else had parked there.

 Our search for a nice breakfast cafe however was thwarted. We wandered into a nice little outside joint which looked gorgeous. It was in the old CWA building with long tendrils of ivy around the roof. Unfortunately appearances can be deceiving. Despite being one block away from a big public event with national dignitaries attending, this particular cafe had failed to consider that they might need extra staff to cope with all the people out and about. The one and only waitress was not coping AT ALL. I was surprised she managed to even take our order without crying. When our cups of coffee finally did arrive they were only half full, which matched our orders, which were only half wrong. Fi's toast was sitting a pile of water and my extra mushrooms never appeared. Lucky the waitress had forgotten to charge me for them. Disappointing. Sadly the search for a good breakfast place continues....

I was very impressed by the setup for the ceremony itself which was down at the Cenotaph on the Esplanade near the water. About 5000 people attended and the organizers had loads of seating spread out for everyone. There were canopies set up so there was shade for everyone and then a number of large screens around in case you wanted to sit out on the grass and watch. They even had people there giving out free bottles of water and fans to combat the heat. 

Fi and I managed to sneak into one of the covered platform areas without too much trouble and had a lovely time watching the show. Ray Martin was MC (I love Ray!) which was exciting in itself.

The  (nice jacket, sensible wedge heels), Tony Abbott (black suit) and Quentin Bryce (lots of silver jewellery) were all in attendance as well as large numbers of the armed forces.

The speeches were very well done and there were lots of flyovers which the kids loved! But the most touching part for me was the recreation of the bombing itself. The combination of the air raid sirens, the automatic weapon fire (blanks only) and the cannons was very overwhelming. I can only imagine how it affected the veterans that were there! Very emotional

Newie Visitors

LAST WEEKEND….

The weekend was hot (no surprises there!) but beautiful weather. – lots of sun and blue skies! After spending Saturday running errands, potting plants and checking out the aisles of the nearby Woolies it was a lovely surprise to get a visit from Rosie, a dear friend from Newie who’s doing a quick GP locum up the north end of the country, and had flown into Darwin for 24 hours. It was just so nice to have a familiar face around and to get news from everyone back there. Thanks Rosie!!!!

Dinner out Saturday night at the Malaysian/Thai/Indian/Jazz bar with a group from the hospital and then a day trip out to Litchfield National Park on Sunday with Rosie (old Newie friend) and Megan (new Newie/old Darwin friend). Litchfield is about 100km southwest of Darwin and covers approximately 1500km^2. I had visited the park a few years back with Linda and it was actually really nice to go back and hang out there again. Aussie landscapes are so beautiful! Although a lot of the Waterholes are closed during the wet season, we did manage to spend the day swimming in the ones that are currently open. We even managed to avoid the ‘flash flooding’ and ‘rapidly rising water levels’ that all the signs warned us about. Phew!

First stop was Florence Falls which has a deep pool with two waterfalls running in. It was quite amusing to watch the various groups of guys try to jump off the rocks into the water in attempts to outdo each other – the best by far was the three guys who jumped in holding hands! And the fresh water was lovely and cool to combat the day’s heat.

 

We then stopped at Buley Rockpools which is basically a series of ‘cascading plunge pools’ (thanks Tourism brochure!). On the way back to town we had a late lunch at the Butterfly Café in Batchelor. It is a combination of a hostel, café, butterfly sanctuary, petting zoo and the worlds largest man-made waterfall (thanks Butterfly café flyer!), and run by a guy who combines an English, Aussies, Irish and Thai accent. He loved us, talked a lot and made great burgers!

Rosie and her handstands

 

WORK…

Work in general is continuing. One of the registrars didn’t turn up to work this week as he has gone overseas for two weeks. Without telling anyone. As you do. So we are running a little short. I have a few lists of my own coming up in the next few weeks, am booked in for a clinic on Bathurst Island as well as a Trauma teaching session in the Tiwi, and I’m running a Burns education session next week too. Somewhere in there I am studying.

Today I got to go to the ‘Indigenous Awareness Program’ and learn about women’s business, skin names and that I am VERY bad at pronouncing aboriginal names. I also got to go to a team building session with the Trauma department. In an effort to improve our (already awesome) functionality we all got profiled. No surprises in that I am a ‘Controller Producer’. i.e. as analytical, structured and compulsive as they come. Apparently we are doing another session next week to see how we can ‘broaden’ our profiles…

AND JUST SO YOU’RE ALL UP TO DATE….

This is the front page of the NT Times today. 

Something for everyone – the backpackers and their bikini car wash, as well as the CROC IN SOMEONE’S HOME!!!!!! I am assured that crocs cannot climb stairs. So I figure I’m safe on the 2^nd floor. I just need to check the car every morning before I get in in case a sneaky croc has managed to open the door and climb in. Better safe than sorry.