On the Bottom Half

Traveler's Plethora.

The remaining days in Darwin were a lot of walking, which was good because I need(ed) the exercise... I didn't realise I was always on the go so much at home; I acutely notice during how much of the day's time I am not doing something, as opposed to when I'm home and scurrying about. I like the touring and traveling, but I miss the purpose everyone and everything at home gives me.

Yes... Darwin walking. The rest of the fishy day was spent finding flights, chatting with Mom, then making supper. As for flights: the cheapest I found was with Virgin Blue (that Richard Branson's a cheeky one, huh?), then I thought since I was a free and easy independent traveler (Ed, no taking that out of context ;-), I'd check into what the travel agencies were offering. Well, they found the same cheap flight I did, but wanted $15 more to book it for me. Humph... Thanks, but I'll do it myself. It got booked for 4 March. The next day at 1045 I went to the Australian Aviation Heritage Centre and marvelled at my favourite-est creations all day. They have a B-52 in their hangar, 'one of only two in the world on display outside the U.S.'. For some reason, it gives me great satisfaction to say that I've seen both - the other one is in the Duxford Imperial War Museum (hangar 5) in England. Ego aside, the museum was wonderful. I very much miss the regularity of airports and flying machines in my normal life. However, not really any of the airplanes are flyable - most have been gutted... There was a lot of material on the first Japanese invasion of Darwin on 19 Feb 1942 (there were 64 raids in total), including the remains of a crashed zero, several engines from P-40s, a replica Spitfire Mk VIII (I got all excited there for a moment!), and instrument panels suffering the ravages of sea water. Have you ever seen a jet Link trainer? Then they talked about the various firsts in Australian aviation and the 1919, 1928, 1934 London-Australia Air Races. They had two decidedly flimsy-looking ultralights, an Aussie version Sabre, a Mirage, and a Cobra! I left at 1700. I spent so long in there that the front desk guy said 'wow, you've spent more time than most people do.' I'm bad when it comes to airplanes... So, that was that day in it's entirety. I went to a beach on Cullen Bay to watch the sunset, then set about making diner.

The next day (Friday) was a big walking day - I went to the WWII oil storage tunnels that were built after brilliant civic planners figured out that the then-present unprotected oil tanks sitting unprotected on the coast were vulnerable to Japanese attack. They dugout these tunnels and finished them almost in time for the war to finish. The two that you can walk though (Nos. 5 and 6) are 171 m and 71 m long, respectively. They are both 4.5m wide and 5 m tall. Capacities: 3.8 and 1.8 million litres respectively, lined with steel to act as bladderless containers. Walking through No. 5 is really quite an experience - to think that all that space was filled with fluid... There's now a photographic display that runs the length of No. 5... After that I went to the Wharf Precinct (Stoke's Hill Wharf) and marvelled at the deep fried goodness that filled the displays, decided to pass, then went back up to the city proper. After some debate (if you'll excuse the pun), I went into the Parliament House to look around. I ran into a staffer named Jan who, on a whim, took me behind locked doors to tour the parliamentary offices and the actual council floor. Cool! Then I took some free Internet from the state library and went back to make dinner. After that, across the street was playing a classical wind quintet. They played a couple of songs that I know, but I don't know which ones they were, so I can't tell you.

Virgin Blue only only departs Darwin at 0130, so it was a late night. There was a two hour layover in Brisbane, then a connecting flight to Cairns. I enjoyed them a lot, but I get frustrated with the disregard people have toward flying. They sit about in their chairs, trying to distract themselves, not really even thinking about this many-tonne masterpeice that's going to hurtle them at 500 mph into the blackness of tropical night. How cool is that?!? Anyone? Anyone?Ughh! I have to tell you about the air conditioning at the airport, though. Now, you all know me as a cold weather kind of guy - I like wearing a coat, soaring at 10,000 feet, and skiing, etc. But with all this sickening heat and humidity, my blood has thinned sufficiently to make airconditioning and the paltry 21 degrees of Brisbane feel cool. There I was, walking around the Bribane airport with goosebumps and an outright refusal to wear a coat in 21 degrees. I went so far as to leave my coat at Bruce and Helen's. Augh...

Cairns is lovely - it's a beautiful little city nestled between mountains and sugar cane fields. It's 'nice' temperature wise - high 20s instead of high 30s every day. Humidity is reasonable too; Darwin's humidity, as you now know, is perfectly unreasonable. There simply isn't anything you can do to make it go away. Anyway, the first order of business upon arrival was to decide on a place to stay (ah the beauty of backpacking), then get to it. After arriving at Castaways Backpackers, I immediately set about to booking a dive trip to the Reef and was successful after much calling of phones (thankfully not mine). I got a 5 day/4 night trip to the outer reef with a boat called Taka. Don't ever book anything to do with diving before reaching Cairns beacuse it was a sweet standby rate that was a couple of hundred dollars less than MSRP. There are better deals out there, too... I leave on Friday 10th March. It's a life goal of mine to dive on the Reef, so I'm very excited! Then, because I don't like risking my life unnecessarily, I booked a refresher course at another dive school, which just happened today.

It was supposed to be a half-day review, but it turned out to be all day (0800-1500). I also booked myself in for another 5 day/4 night trip, but this time for a much better price - FREE! They have these 'Hostie' positions on the dive boats where you help put out food, clean the rooms, and clean up in exchange for your keep! I'll be changing linen, wiping out foul spots that shouldn't be shared here, serving food, etc. in exchange for room, board, and 2-3 dives a day. All that happens on 20-24 March. Because of all this, I decided to be a bit extravagant and got a new mask and snorkel, so that I wasn't sharing other people's face germs while on these two trips.

Let you know as things happen...

Update complete!

posted by Kyle @ 22:21