Phase Two: The Australia Weeks

11 October 2009

Almost six full months in (we left London on 12 April, kids, keep up here), and we've made it to Oz. Darwin, specifically, which is technically where the Odyssey trip was always going. We're the only ones who got here (Corrie and Louise are transiting through the airport, but that's post-us) so I like to tell everyone that we won.

Flying after all this time was a bit of a change. I actually felt like I was going somewhere for the first time in ages...overland is so beautifully gradual, and flying so immediate. Changi is a decent airport, at least, clean and quick and free internet and wifi everywhere. Jet Star is the ghetto branch of Qantas, but surprisingly decent and no clambering over children and the elderly to seize a decent seat, unlike Ryanair or Southwest. Most of our flight was going on to Melbourne; at the inhuman hour of 4:40am, we arrived in Darwin and proceeded to camp out on sofas in the arrivals hall like vagrants, as we knew we couldn't check in at the hostel until 1pm. We did come in to town around 7:30, and they kindly let us leave our rucksacks (mine alone weighs 18.5 kilos), and we wandered off though Darwin.

Darwin is, well, sort of American. Not sure what I expected of Australia, and it's certainly no NJ, but this place is more like the States than anywhere else I've ever been. Super friendly, every shopkeeper wants to talk, people acknowledge you when you pass by; we've had chats with a couple who are on a 4 month cruise around the world (clearly they expected us to be impressed, but I fired right back with my 6 months on a truck--again I say, we win); the mildly racist owner of the place we bought a simcard for the mobile (super nice to us, but in front of two Chinese guys told us how good it is to deal with people who can actually speak English for a change); and a pair of Mormon missionaries who invited us to church tomorrow. We were napping on a concrete pier overlooking the Tamil Sea at the time, I was in no humour to be godded by a pair of 22 year-olds in matching outfits, but to be fair they were very polite boys. And no one else has tried to save my soul in months, so that was refreshing.

Wandered a grocery store, it's just so good to have cheese again. By which I mean more than one kind. And cases of diet coke, and a wide range of Old El Paso products (overwhelming urge to hug the shelf), and produce I recognize. Most everything is pricey, this is not going to be a cheap country; but the fillet steaks were about $3 each, so we'll just have to be carnivores for a while. Mmm...fillet steak with avocado and hollandaise. Mmmm.

We've been killing time this morning waiting to check in and sleep for a bit, so haven't actually done anything touristy yet. The hostel is full of fit young things, who I pretty much hate already: "Are you young! Are you fit! Are you ready!" Signs like this litter Darwin, to which I say: "God, no, and leave me alone!"

But we have our own room and despite the plastic sheets, it's fine. A lizard lives (thankfully in a glass box) in the lobby. There's a pool, and we're in the middle of eveything, and it's only two sleeps until we get our camper van and off we go. Have shopped and replaced toiletries and shoes and other prosaic things. New havaianas! Yay!