Not Before Time

Once again it’s been a while since the last update – how quickly time goes, we’re more than a quarter of the way through 2008 already!

We’ve been busy working and when we’re not doing that, we’re out in the boat or catching up with friends so not too exciting, but fun.  That’s probably why I haven’t updated – didn’t want to have you all nodding off while you were reading this! 

It’s now official – the Wet’s finished and the Dry Season is here.  The days are still quite warm and the mornings and late afternoon into the evenings are getting cooler.  It feels odd because I’m thinking it’s autumn with winter coming, but instead of getting rugged up, it’s superb weather and the main time of year for gardening, swimming (no crocs I believe, but where do they go?), garage and yard sales etc and people are out and about.   All the markets have started up again and it’s also the main tourist season of course.  Already the numbers of people around town is growing and I’ve been told that it gets really busy and crowded up here – that’s probably the bit I’m not looking forward to.  Prices for accommodation and tourist attractions also go up at this time of year, and I’m guessing food prices too.

I still haven’t caught a fish!   We went on a half day fishing charter over Easter – The guy on my left caught fish, David on my right caught fish – did I catch any fish?  No!  Same rods, same bait – nothing, not even a nibble – guess I just suck at fishing .   I’ll keep on trying though.  The last time we went out (about 3 weeks ago) we were just talking about heading in after catching nothing over a period of 4 hours when David caught a really big estuary cod – beautiful fish and very good eating.  It was filled with lemon and baked whole for dinner – beautiful!   He also caught 3 or 4 little fingermark snappers but they were sent home again to grow a bit more – me? Not a thing!  That day was also one of the scariest days out in the boat – we got caught in some really rough water – huge swells and troughs (well, our boat is really little, and they were huge in comparison).  Very scary and extremely uncomfortable trying to hang on so I didn’t get tossed out the boat – good thing David is a really good skipper!  I think we’ll stick to calm waters from now on.  Below are photos from the fishing charter – David catching his 2 fish and the sun rising over Darwin.  (We headed out fishing at around about 5:30am).

As you probably know, my sister Gail and her partner Russell are also in Darwin although they are at a different park from us.  It was Gail’s birthday (50th!) at the end of March – so Gail and Russell picked us up in a limo and we went to a great Darwin restaurant called Pee Wee’s at the Point – had a terrific night – great company, beautiful food and good champagne.  I’m really glad we are in Darwin the same time as they are, it was so good being here for her birthday.   Of course, the celebrations continued the following day with a bbq for their friends at their caravan park – another good night had by all.  Happy Birthday Gail.  Here’s a couple of shots – the first one is Gail and Russell inside the limo – very disco, and of course the other is my gorgeous sister Gail.

Manton Dam

 We went to Manton Dam a few weeks ago as we’d heard that it was good for fishing.  Can’t remember who told us that, but I don’t think the fish would come out until the people went home!  This is the place to go for water skiing and the day we went it was packed with families on skis, ski boards, tyres and jet skis.  I must admit I was surprised to see so many people actually in the water as there are crocs in the dam, but apparently they’re freshwater crocs and I’ve been told they generally leave people alone.  Well, that might be the case, but I wasn’t going to test the theory!  I’ll just add, I didn’t see many adults in the water, mainly kids! And they were very quickly picked up if they came off the skis or boards .  Anyway, it’s a very pretty area but it was smaller than I thought it would be and it gets really busy.  Think we’ll stick to the bay and the creeks.  Here’es a couple of snaps.