Day 241 Rick this entry is per your request, LOL, I rolled a few days into one. Over the last few days we have done a lot of...tanning. Another city and yet another lagoon. This one has two sections however one being free and the other one right beside it with an entry fee of $8 for the day. This is because it is a wave pool and not just your standard lagoon. We have been frequenting the free one as this suits us just fine. We will try out the wave pool one of these days.
Other than that we went to the movies again. This time however we went to the Deckchair Cinema just off the Esplanade. This seems to be tho most uneventful esplanade yet, the past ones have always been busy. This one doesn't have much to offer as the shops are one street over and the lagoon is in the harbour. Thirty minute walk later we were heading down a long flight of stairs to the cinema. The gates weren't open yet but that didn't matter as we caught a wicked Darwin sunset. The bright yellow sun turned orange then almost red as it went down behind the ocean and a few boats floating away. The gates soon opened and we went in, sorta as it's out doors under the stars. There is only one screen towering over the rows of canvas deckchairs. We grabbed a few pillows that were provided in a huge pile near the snack bar, settled in and started sipping the bottle of wine we brought.
On Sunday we took in another night market session at Mindil Beach. This time we went hungry so we could enjoy some dinner and another sunset. When we got there the market was in full swing. It is separated from the beach by just a sand dune. As we walked out to the beach we were surprised at how many people were already there. Must have been five hundred or so waiting for the sun to duck below the horizon, cameras poised to try and capture that perfect shot.
The other day we also ventured over to the Museum And Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Fannie Bay. Such an extensive array of displays. Could be the best museum we been to since New York, and it is free. It has everything from the NT, from the poisonous snakes, reptiles, jellyfish to Aboriginal art, a massive crocodile named "sweetheart", that unfortunately died during relocation (it was attacking boats). Fish and prehistoric skeletal displays, boats seized from asylum seekers to a massive room dedicated to Cyclone Tracey that ripped Darwin to shreds in the 1970's. There is a sound room where you can hear actual recording of the cyclone, whose winds reached over 260kms/hr, breaking the measuring instrument at that point. There was so much to see and we were so enjoying ourselves that we had to go back a second time to finish.
The temperature has been holding steady at 39 degrees daily with the humidity in the 50s. This is leading us to spent quite a lot of time at the hostel pool. We met and hung out with a Brit couple, Steph and Ryan who just arrived in OZ four days ago. They are starting their trip here and heading to the east coast in a few days. Besides chilling with drinks by the pool, we made a trip to the casino, located alongside Mindil Beach. Again very small. There is only ten tables for games and no poker room like the Reef in Cairns. We played the longest we have ever on a one arm bandit with $10 lasting almost two hours and turning into $40 by the end.
We have also locked in some work starting near the end of the month. We are going to a mango farm and working in the packing shed as far as we can tell.