9/17:The Northern Territory & Darwin's Mindil Sunset Market

Oops - I just realized I forgot to send the following post before the 9/18 one describing our day in Darwin's Litchfield National Park. My apologies for getting them out of order.

If you've been reading the posts, you know we flew into Darwin in the Top End of Australia from Cairns arriving about 5ish. Very heartwarming seeing the following signs, Zachary, as of course they reminded us of you! Had never seen signs with YOUR name on them in all of our travels, only your siblings' names so glad to finally see, not one but 2, with yours.

Each of the 4 Australian airports we've seen have welcome signs from the local Aboriginal people.

We needed another rental car in Darwin as the sights we wanted to see were located a ways out of the city. Don’t think I mentioned that all rental car agencies we were able to find for both Uluru and here in Darwin only come with a free 100kms a day which is ridiculously low considering the vast swaths of land you need to drive to see anything of the country. Each km over and above is charged at .33 which adds up at an alarming rate when you’ve come to visit the incredible national parks located in the boonies away from Darwin.

Some background on Darwin:

Following European settlement in 1864, for the 1^st century of its life Darwin was an outpost of the British Empire, with vast cattle farming being established around it. In its short colorful history the city has experienced the gold rush of the 1890’s, life as an Allied frontline during WWII and almost total destruction in 1974 by the fearful winds of Cyclone Tracy.

We hightailed it to The Palm Hotel – yeah, not a dorm this time! – and dropped off our gear in the huge room we had been upgraded to. Since I had requested that there be plates and cups etc in the room as advertised (but according to reviews on Trip Advisor didn’t generally happen), Michael, the manager, had given us the huge room rather than moving plates, etc to the smaller room I had booked – we didn’t mind one iota! The room/mini apt wasn’t conducive to creating any Julia Childs’ masterpiece as it only had a hotplate and a microwave but it was perfect for our needs.

One of the biggest attractions or things to do in the city is to visit their magical markets, each one only open about 10 hours a week on either one or 2 days. We were lucky that the biggest, Mindil Beach Sunset Market, was open on Thursday, the day we arrived beginning at 4. I had read that half of Darwin descends on Mindil Beach as the sun heads toward the horizon.

We left immediately to walk over there which was only located a fairly short distance from our hotel. We could hear as we neared the sounds of a dirigido and drums playing and made a beeline for them. There was a good sized crowd raptly listening to the 2 fellows, both white. The dirigidoo player mentioned during a break among songs that the 2 had been playing together for 20 years and you could tell by their perfect harmony – just delightful hearing them. 

Had never seen more than a single dirigidoo ever being played before and always by an Aborinigal, so seeing this guy having 4 ‘pipes’ to alternate playing with during a song was fantastic. 

There was no communication possible during the songs but you could notice each musician’s eyes darting back and forth to each other as they played.

Lots more to see at the market so we strolled through some of the many food stalls and then made our way to the arts and crafts section of the market, always one of our favorites.

I bought a small impressionist style painting from this Northern Territory artist Gary Collins.

We had also seen items made from recycled rubber tires in the 'hippie market' in Kuranda. Intriguing but I couldn't get over the smell.

I never associated Australia previously with buffalo but they're common here.

We had already bought 3 small pieces of original aboriginal art but were interested to see the style of art practiced by the local indigenous people in this area of Australia as each region is marked by widely different styles. Here, we noticed, the style ran much more to depictions of fish and other animals.

The bookstore/gallery represented here had some beautiful items but we decided to wait a couple of days til we had time to go to the store/gallery and view more of their collection rather than having to make a decision in a hurry.

There is a huge population with Greek ancestry in Darwin.

What's your favorite?!

Just in case you didn't have enough hot dog choices, here are lots of burger choices for you!

The first vanity license plate we’d seen in Australia. Sure way different from Colorado where I think there are some 70 odd religious, educational, community plates, etc you can order as well as all the vanity plates like this one. 

Getting late and very dark so we headed back to the hotel having had a very full day and a long day planned for the next.

Posted from Ubud in Bali, Indonesia on 9/26.