Sparrow Lorelei photo gallery

Darwin trip part 5, 10-17 July, 2010
Exploring Darwin and Palmerston

Mindil Beach Markets. Noisy, crowded, throngs of people, but such a wonderful atmosphere I really didn't mind it. The Spud seemed to be looking in all directions too. We tried a bunch of different food - she wasn't so keen on the pawpaw smoothie, but the Timorese marinated squid and dragonfruit sorbet were great hits. She seemed happy enough with the camel-on-a-stick and buffalo sausage, and tried one of my coconut-pandan balls with the grated palm sugar on the inside but wasn't convinced. I didn't mind as it meant I got to eat them all myself. We paused in the middle to stand on the beach with hundreds of other people and look at the sun setting somewhere beyond the red sand, then went back to wandering. There were lots of interesting crafty things to consider buying too, but I managed to escape without too much. I was tempted by the rainbow-dyed baby clothes but Sparrow was getting a bit tired and grizzly by that stage of the evening so we couldn't really dawdle. She wanted to go to sleep but there was a little too much going on and we were walking slowly. We left the markets well after dark and walked briskly back to the hotel and she fell asleep very quickly.

Friday morning, strolling in the Smith St mall. We were making our way leisurely towards Indo Pacific Marine and the Waterfront area. Very leisurely.

Fountains that Sparrow can get into! She was thrilled. She sat right down in the puddle-pool and started splashing. Soaked the outside of her nappy cover and her dress, so we had to change her shortly after this.

There's a children's playground in the mall, so we let her burn off a bit of steam there. She is always hesitant at new places so doesn't really run around and get energetic, more of a cautious explorer. But she likes it well enough.

This was the hit of the morning. It's the Funbus, a free mobile playgroup that sets up in parks around Darwin. We happened to come by City Park while it was on. They had tables of sand trays and of slime, blankets and mats laid out with blocks and books and toys of different age and skill ranges, and lots of kids playing with stuff. Sparrow was in heaven. We ended up spending most of our time on the infants' and babies' mat, and I got a few ideas for toys to look for or to make that she quite enjoyed fiddling with. She also managed to score a piece of corn on the cob from another family by cuteing at them, and quite liked it for at least a minute or so before it became mine to hold. When corn comes back into season here we'll have to try giving it to her again.

This is a view from the top of the cliffs looking out over the Waterfront area. Those are all new apartment blocks with shops at the bottom (mostly empty still), and you can see the section of harbour they've netted off for free safe swimming. We walked out this walkway to the end (which is at a hotel) but we didn't go down the elevator to the bottom - I knew we were looking for Travellers' Walk to take us down to Indo Pacific Marine and wasn't sure if this would get us caught up in the wrong part of the harbour.

Here we are on Travellers' Walk. It's not the original walkway from the harbour at the bottom of the cliffs to the city at the top, but it has most of the same route. If you want to go to the harbour you have to go down somewhere, somehow. For some reason they thought it was a good idea to put the settlement fifteen metres above all the giant flesh-eating reptiles and invisible stinging jellyfish, can't imagine why. I liked this mural.

At the bottom of Travellers Walk we met Mum at the cafe at Wave Lagoon, another safe swimming area - more accurately, a large waterside pool with artificial wave generators. She wandered off to do the history walk in the area while we got lunch - I was starting to really need it. Then we discovered that the Wave Lagoon cafe didn't actually have any food, only chips and drinks. So we walked to Indo Pacific Marine, thinking we'd eat there, and their cafe was closed for the day. They helpfully sent us back through the Waterfront area to "lots of cafes and restaurants", which turned out to be one expensive restaurant and one coffee-and-focaccia-type cafe. So here we are having lunch at the cafe... and right next to us over there, that's the elevator at the end of that walkway, the one that I decided we shouldn't go down because we'd be in the wrong place. James finds my ability to fail to get food almost mystical.

Pretty sandstone on Stokes Hill, on the short walk back to Indo Pacific Marine. Local legend places a tawny frogmouth spirit in the rocks of this hill.

And here we are, finally where we meant to be after a morning not quite getting here. We couldn't take photos inside, so this is all you get - but it was really quite amazing. They have a tank forty foot long that houses a coral reef ecosystem that they've built up from scratch over ten or fifteen years, and can talk about it and the local marine life for ages. I thought Sparrow might quite enjoy it, especially as she'd had a long sleep just before arriving so shouldn't be cranky. But no, she was suddenly hyped up and LOUD and so James and I took turns listening to the guide and wrangling her in the next section. She didn't mind looking at some of the fish but they mostly didn't hold her attention. And she couldn't see into the big tank unless we were holding her, at which point she'd start flailing trying to get into the "swimming pool". So she was a little young for this one, or maybe it just wasn't the right day. James and I enjoyed it though.

From here, Mum went one way and we went another. We decided to walk to the Darwin Fish Market on Fishermans Wharf. We liked the thought of seeing market stalls of local fish and seafood, and checking out prices and species and the general market vibe. The maps were a bit vague and we weren't sure how far it was. The counter girl thought it might be a bit far to walk but gave us some general directions anyway. So we walked around the hill, and down the road, and got to a place where we weren't sure what way we should go given the roads, and then James said "I think we should cross here". And pointed out the tiny little shop we'd almost walked past with the sign saying "Darwin Fish Market". It was a much shorter distance than we'd imagined - Darwin kept surprising us just how small it was. Inside the shop they had two small counters and a couple of buckets of mud crabs on the floor under a sack. So not the market kind of thing we were expecting at all! But the local-caught fish was marvellously fresh and well-priced - if we'd been cooking for ourselves we'd have bought there several nights. Instead we just bought some smoked barramundi dip and smoked crocodile dip to take back to Victoria with us. Then we walked around behind the little strip of shops and found Fishermans Wharf itself, which is where these photos are taken.

Back at the hotel room after our hot walk. We broke the walk and stopped in on the way at the local Zone 3 where Chris was having an afternoon of games. It's nice that things in Darwin aren't too far apart, because the heat does make the walk a bit more tiring. So when we got back we were definitely ready for food and drink. Sparrow has just had the left-over dragonfruit sorbet, or rather slush, with some yoghurt and has managed to get it all over the place including on me.

For the evening, after our swim, we took a drive around the suburbs of Darwin and then out to Palmerston for dinner at the markets there. We stopped on the way at this sculpture, which is three house girders that were twisted by Cyclone Tracy. It's also a virtual geocache - you take a photo of yourself at the spot and upload it to the site to log it. So here is Team Sparrow at the geocache site, minus our smallest member who's decided to fall asleep just before we got here.

Chris, at the sculpture, preparing to surf off.

At the Palmerston Markets. Easy to find, because they're in a park near the base of this water tower. And you can see it from a fair way away.

We were meeting up with Justine, who I used to play with when I was little. Her mother Lyris and my mother are still good friends. Justine and I haven't seen each other for maybe twenty years or so, so it was a fun kind of catchup. Justine loves markets as much as Mum and I do, by the look of it. We had a good time sitting on the grass eating dinner from the stalls - pandan chicken, satay sticks, a "crippy" egg which turned out to be an egg wrapped in mince and deep fried til, um, crispy. And we walked around looking at different fun things - little ladies of indeterminate age and origin throwing handfuls of ingredients into mortars and pounding them with pestles to make something generically called "paw paw salad", piles of jackfruit and banana flowers and other unusual fruits and vegetables at the fruitsellers stand (which I admired while drinking fresh-squeezed sugar cane juice), hot chips that were made from whole potatoes cut into spirals and stuck on a stick. Sparrow discovered she really liked prawn sesame toast. We were warned that the Palmerston markets were a bit "suburban", and they were - not nearly as large as Mindil, not as much touristy stuff, but that was good because it meant they also had stalls with fresh food like the fruit and vegetables, things you might go there to get as part of your shopping and not just the pre-made entertainment stuff. If we lived in Darwin we'd probably come here semi-regularly just for the fun of it - the scale was so much more manageable than Mindil, and it was still such a great vibe.

One of the stalls had been handing out free balloons, and a family Sparrow went up to talk to ended up "donating" one of theirs to her. She thought this was quite cool. We went from the markets into the shopping centre next door for hot chocolate and coffee and chat where we could hear each other more easily (and not by the loud music!). Sparrow is wandering around freely - she was very easy to keep track of as we could always see the balloon even if she was behind tables. She's also carrying somebody's keys that she's managed to get hold of.

There was only one reasonably-priced flight back to Melbourne from Darwin, and it left a little after 7 am. So we were up early in the cool - in fact, very early, as Sparrow decided she was ready to be up and moving at 4:30 am. So we finished our packing and got ourselves ready, James and Sparrow went out for a quick walk and then Mum drove us to the airport. Here we are, returned to Melbourne, waiting for our baggage. One little girl was a little cranky on the flight due to having got up so early, but was mostly OK and even slept for close to two hours of it. The only down moment was in the last ten minutes when she drank too much water and then threw up in James' shoe. Here she is burning off some of the energy she built up in that long flight and sleep by looking for as much mischief as possible. In particular, making repeated attempts to pick up the moving plates of the baggage carousel, or just climb on it. Note that one of her arms is sticking out of the picture - I'm holding onto it with a deathgrip to keep her from running away for the 53rd time. I tried sticking an elastic tag on her saying "Domestic Connecting" but nobody picked her up for a transfer. It did keep her distracted for half a minute while she tried to get the tag off though. By two pm we were home, ready for a quiet rest-of-the-day.