Darwin

So Darwin has been fun in a strange kind of way. Some of the scenery has been beautiful:

And I clearly would have gotten along well with the pioneers who named these places in the late 1800s: 

Jokers.

The colour coding has weirded me out:

Purple means Worcestershire sauce...

 

Somewhat sadly, though, I have discovered that I am no longer a backpacker. Grubby and intrepid worldly traveller, yes. Backpacker, no. On transferring from the posh hotel that Frenchie's company pays for to the hostel that I could afford, my first thoughts were the following:

1. It is awfully loud; I wonder if there's a quiet area?

2. Everyone is covered in tattoos. How uncouth. 

3. String vests are under garments. Where are these young men's shirts? (Frenchie always wears a shirt, and very occasionally a polo shirt, as the Kennedys are his fashion icons)

4. Everyone smells of beer. 

So, I said goodbye to my hedonistic youth, bough a spinach and ricotta quiche from the delicatessen counter and some organic forest fruit smoothie and bunked down to watch 'The Godfather' on Minipad, happy in the knowledge that the transformation into my mother was now complete. 

There really are worse people you could become.

Happily though, Courtney accessed her secret librarian Bat Cave and through the powers of magnetism harnessed through the barcode scanners across the world, guided me towards this building:

 

... where there was free wifi, nice ladies to help me and plug sockets and very quiet spaces. This all resulted in a first draft of 21,000 words, which is a real problem because I haven't finished and already I need to cut 3,000 words.

Of course, I'm not a complete loser. On one of my long romantic walks on the beach, I stumbled - bemused and suspicious - across this:

Despising cultural stereotyping in all its forms, I floated around exploring this carnivalesque atmosphere, bought a key ring and found a warden in a uniform to explain to me what this typically Aussie shameless promotion of alcohol and thug behaviour with children present was all about. She explained that when Hurricane Tracey had devastated the town in the '80s, there had been litter, including cans strewn everywhere, so to make the clean up process more fun, they had built and raced rafts made out of the debris and the tradition had stuck and now it's an annual charity event!  How wonderful!  The paper said they raised over $45,000 for poor kids or something. 

And you've got to admire the engineering expertise that has gone into some of these vessels:

Very happy to see Frenchie's little face again, as well as the promise of new clothes and free shampoo from posh hotels. Only 2 days now until I potentially get deported...