Thursday, September 23, 2010

tropical darwin

after rousing ourselves VERY early in the morning, sarah was courageous enough to start our drive (which was uneventful). we arrived at the alice springs airport a bit later than we planned, but actually more than 10 minutes to spare (for once!). we flew to darwin, and were seated next to a wonderful woman who works on building job skills in aboriginal communities. she even recommended that we head to mindel beach for the markets that evening.

after landing in darwin, we gathered our belongings and headed to the yha to check in. after staying at the adelaide yha, we had high expectations for the one in darwin... but it was definitely not as nice. after unloading our stuff, we decided to take a walk to mindel beach and the markets.

darwin is in the far north of the middle of the country, and is definitely a tropical location. it was hot and humid, but i was willing to put up with that because there were plumeria everywhere! my favorite! our walk took us past the botanical gardens, which had a number of plumeria trees, all of them beautiful! we also walked past a team of young cricket players - think "little league" for cricket.



we strolled over to mindel, where the sellers were beginning to set up their wares, and walked out to the beach. this was our chance to put our toes in the indian ocean! although it's the timor sea, sarah assured me that in oceanography, it counts as the indian ocean.





after some beach time, we walked back to the booths and did some shopping. we bought some fun stuff, and returned to the beach in time to watch the sun set. although the view was not perfect because of some low-level clouds on the horizon, it was still very beautiful. we walked back through some more booths and grabbed dinner just in time to see the sky turn bright pink and purple. the sunset had turned the sky into an incredibly beautiful scene - which of course my camera could not really capture.


we grabbed some ice cream and headed back to the hostel for a good night's sleep. tomorrow - kakadu national park!

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