the darwin bit of our trip

darwin was HUUmid! and when someone who's just come from singapore says that, you know it's got to be true.
it wasn't even that hot, but moving around made you instantly sluggish and sweaty and longing for a/c.

but it was nice having our own space after scunging off relatives. we got this cool 4 star hotel for $80 a night (rack rate of $250) from wotif... very lush.

darwin's an interesting place. absolutely nothing to do in the town centre, incredibly non-happening as they say, except think about the aboriginal folk wandering the streets and lounging in doorways.

the food was mostly awful though, in the town centre, i suppose catering to the backpackers comprising the majority of the population there. coming from singapore, this threw me into the food-blues.. i ended up eating ravioli from a can and cream cheese triangles in our hotel room, which was surprisingly quite nice.

*but we did go to a nice and swanky place; A had barramundi, i had wagyu rissoles, and dandan was a beyond perfect dining companion (thank you colouring book):

*continuing the fish theme; here we are with our darling little rented car ($33 a day with baby seat!) fishing on the wharf, in the rain, at sunset. lots of people came along for the same reason; it was a really nice vibe. dan spent almost the whole time playing in the car, i guess water all looks the same, especially when it's physically quite far away and untouchable:

*these are the only remotely darwin-y looking pictures we have. the soil is literally red! (more apparent IRL):
^(no, i don't know why i'm looking so goofily)


*and this was a highlight of our little darwin trip; hundreds of fish turning up for a daily feeding; you get to touch them, they eat out of your hand and nibble your fingers!, and they flash in and out of your legs in the water.. dandan had such a blast:

*and a close second for favourite outing: the crocodile park, which had dandan saying "coc-o-dai-yl!" for days afterward.
it looks very cage-d, but apparently this park is run by the conservationists, and is vital to conservation (public education, breeding, farming, education of farmers who would otherwise kill their eggs, etc)
the croc really does leap at astonishing speed, up several metres. even though we were expecting him to do so, we still jumped when it happened. and his jaws make a big "pop" sound as they bang together, from the air escaping so rapidly. scary stuff.

but this little guy was fun. i feel bad for him, but well, dandan had a blast tickling him. (this is after i gave dan a bath with a bottle of water, in the public bathroom. he was ridiculously sweaty..)

but the art bit of it was very cool. we trawled all the galleries - they're co-ops, working directly with local artists and communities, and the art starts from very affordable entry level prices of like $60 upward (for the unknown or lesser-names of the aboriginal art scene); some of them had the artists themselves working there or even running the gallery.

this is a local resident at one of the art co-ops.
he was funny at first, nuzzling against A and licking the salt off his skin, but then he got reeeally insistent, and scratched at A when he tried to get away! also scary stuff. but cute.

*and this is at a hotel lobby we stopped at for their a/c, and to get some sweat off our skin with a facewasher we rinsed with a bottle of water. classy. we didn't even order anything from the bar.
how cool is this setup though: