Sparrow Lorelei photo gallery

Darwin trip part 3, 10-17 July, 2010
Getting back to Darwin city, and crocodiles

On our way back into the city, we stopped here. We are looking for another geocache, at a siding on the historic original north-south railway. (This is the one we'd been on our way to when I kerb-crunched the car). We'd found the siding itself the night before on our way to dinner, but it had been just after sunset and had got dark rapidly. Love tropical sunsets - these are possibly the longest of the year, and they still happen reasonably quickly it seems. So we'd driven through bush on mysterious tracks guessing that they might head in the right direction and hoping we didn't get ourselves in somewhere that we couldn't get out of. When we found it it was obviously the right spot, but James and Chris couldn't find the cache in the dark. So we looked again today. It was where we thought it should be, just very well camouflaged so that each of us had looked past it at least once.

I think this is a Eucalyptus in flower, but the flowers are very large and structurally a little looser and softer than the ones I'm used to. Lots of nice nectar in them too. This photo doesn't give the scale, but that's probably between one and three inches. There was a beautiful painting of one of these at the Didgeridoo Hut that we saw when we stopped at Humpty Doo on the drive back to Darwin. I would have liked to have bought the painting - it was bright colours on black, lots of interesting plants piled together with a bush food theme. But paintings are out of my budget at the moment. There was also a blue demon from a saltwater country painter that I thought would have been totally fantastic, but I think it was $5000 so I definitely wasn't buying it. The $10 bar of crocodile soap was more my budget range.

We started our Darwin time by visiting a crocodile park. The one we'd thought to visit closed a few years ago, and the newest one looked a little hyped. So we went to the classic and best known one, Crocodylus Park. To start with we got lunch - crocodile burgers! - and then we left Sparrow sitting with Grandma and playing here in the cafe and shop while James, Chris and I went to have a better look at the crocodiles. She needed to burn off energy and run around and play freely for a bit and we figured that we didn't need the fear factor of trying to keep an inquisitive little baby completely out of reach of six-metre-long aggressive hungry salties.

And we were right. GEEZ they can move. We were all standing on a walkway above the pens of the solo and paired adult crocodiles listening to the guide talk about crocodiles and explain odds and sods, including how nothing was to go through the wires and if it did it wasn't ever getting retrieved. I was really quite happy that I wasn't trying to hold a wriggly baby at the same time.

After the guided presentation bit (which James and I dipped in and out of), they brought out some snakes and baby crocodiles for people to hold and touch. We went back and got Sparrow for that bit. Sparrow didn't seem to mind touching the crocodile but was more interested in the people, the croc just wasn't that exciting to her apparently.

Holding a one-year-old crocodile takes as much strength and concentration as holding a one-year-old child. They are strong, that tail can hit strong enough to hurt, and they can really wriggle. Luckily they have really weak counter-muscles in their jaws. So while an adult croc can bite down on you with a pressure of up to two tonnes per square inch, you can hold their mouth closed with a bit of electrical tape.

After the crocodiles we went and looked at the other animals on display. They had a stroller we could borrow so Sparrow happily sat in that. It got her up high enough to see the Hayman turtles which she really loved, and the iguanas in this cage. She was quite happy to sit and watch both of these and just look at them for a surprising amount of time. One of the iguanas came forward to give her a good looking over too and they happily watched each other for a couple of minutes.

Many of the exhibits weren't really easy for her to see things in, and when she did see animals it didn't always seem to make an impression. The exceptions were the ostriches, which fluffed up and made awesome faces at her, and this buffalo. The buffalo was very cool, and she really wanted some of what it was eating (probably cauliflower leaves). While I appreciate her desire for vegetables, we had to explain that taking other animals' food while they were eating really wasn't a good idea.

The room at the Peninsular Hotel where we stayed. Tucked in behind the laundry on the ground floor, it had two rooms, two courtyards and a lot more beds than we needed. We made it work for us fairly nicely. Sparrow's all right with balconies but it was nice to have the outdoor space to let her move in rather than trying to keep her within the room. And the air conditioning was absolutely frigid. Didn't suit me, but I was the only one :-)

We had some afternoon and evening time to explore, so Sparrow, Mum and I went down towards the back edge of the cliffs, where Myilly Point is (a historic homes area). Sparrow and I are playing on the lawn by one of the homes while Mum explores - the view out that way overlooks the Skycity casino. Sparrow is having fun with the shopping bag that Mum bought at the Didgeridoo Hut. She really likes putting the strap of a bag over her head or shoulder and walking around with it. I don't know why this is, but it's been one of her favourite games this month. James and Chris stayed in the room and chilled out, literally as well as figuratively. Darwin city seemed noticeably hotter than Tumbling Waters. I certainly noticed how much extra effort it was to walk with Sparrow strapped to me. It was nice to sit still for a few minutes when we got back, and nice that there was an appealing sounding restaurant with Thai and Indian style food just across the road from us.