Darwin

G'day from Darwin!

After a very long day (days? I'm not sure...) of travel, I arrived in Darwin, NT yesterday afternoon. I left CT on Wednesday and got to spend a lovely, if all too short, 22 hours in LA and the Thursday night I boarded the plane for Sydney. While very long (15 hours) the flight was extremely comfortable. I flew Qantas on their gigantic Air Bus. Mercifully I was able to get my center seat switched to the window, so I had plenty of room, a great view, plus there was no one next to me, so I could really stretch out. The people on Qantas love to feed you! We had 2 meals, supper and breakfast, plus any time they saw you so much as roll over in the night, they would ply you with cookies or hot chocolate or some other snack.

I landed in Sydney at 8:30 and got fairly worked over at customs. Apparently someone accidentally brought equine encephalitis into Australia a few years ago and it demolished the horse racing industry, so farmy folk like me set off all sorts of red flags. They washed my boots for me and made sure I was 100% dirt free before letting me through. At least they were very nice about the whole thing.

I then zipped over to the next terminal to catch my flight to Darwin (on which they fed me again!) and 5 hours and I short nap later I was here. Darwin is an interesting city. Although it's the largest city in the Northern Territory and popular with the backpacking crowd (especially those of the surfing variety), it is still tiny, consisting of only about 2 main roads and a beach. I checked into my hotel and then went walking. It is outrageously hot (30 C, who knows what that means?) and so humid that you sweat as soon as you step outside and your hair is impossible to tame. As I was walking, I noticed some clouds rolling in, so I decided to head back. No sooner had the though crossed my mind than I was caught in a torrential deluge. This season is called The Wet, and boy do they mean it! Within seconds the streets were flooded and I felt like I had fallen into a pool. The rain only lasted about half an hour though, and when it passed, the whole city was filled with birdsong and the smell of tropical flowers.

In a few hours I hop on the bus to Daly Waters, a 9 hour drive from here. Tomorrow morning someone from the station will retrieve me from my hotel and take me to Walhallow. I'm looking forward to dropping my bags, settling in, and getting to work. While Australia is pretty accessible, all of this travel has me very tense.

That's all for now,
Jena