Well - we're moving up in the world.
The hospital randomly called a week ago and offered us a two-bedroom flat on the proviso that we could move in over the weekend. We managed to truck all of our stuff over on Saturday, dodging rain showers and wilting in the heat and humidity. Worth it though - this place is much bigger, nicer and has carpet :). AND we made it just in time for Ryan's parents to be able to stay with us (much to the chagrin of my Mum and Dad)(left out of the blog AND had to fork out for their own accommodation...)
This weekend we decided to drive out to Gunn Point, with a detour along the way to the wreckage of an old Kittyhawk plane. This ended up being slightly more challenging than we predicted - initially turning off the main road a bit too early. What started out looking like a well-driven track rapidly deteriorated into barely perceptible wheel marks twisting through tightly spaced scrub (with and abundance of scratchy branches...)(I think Ryan nearly cried at least twice)(kidding - I dodged all the trees). As the symbol indicating the Kittyhawk on the GPS gradually started getting further and further away we finally decided to turn around - finding after we made it back to the main road that we had really only traveled a couple of km's (felt much longer)(especially to Ryan who jogged a chunk of it in order to clear the larger obstacles out of the way).
We finally found the correct track in - this one being in a much more drivable condition. It also twisted its way through the scrub, eventually brining us alongside a huge tract of marshland (looking very croc-friendly)(the requisite photos were taken well back from the water's edge). The track lead on a bit further before coming right alongside a depression in the bush strewn with pieces of twisted fuselage (and multiple other bits of unidentifiable wreckage). The Kittyhawk had been shot down by a Japanese bomber during WWII - apparently the pilot bailed out over Gunn Point and managed to survive. His plane definitely wasn't so lucky, and the crater left where it had hit, even all this time later, was still impressive. I also snagged another geocache at the site :)
The road continued on past the wreckage, and we thought (buoyed by our track-finding experience earlier in the day)(ie. we learned nothing) that we could follow it out as a shortcut back to the main road. Sure enough, although it headed in the right direction, it too rapidly deteriorated (with the trees getting closer and closer to the side mirrors) and eventually petered out completely to leave us stuck in a patch of impenetrable scrub. According to the GPS it was only a tantalizing 700m back to the main track in, but we had to turn around (no easy task in itself) and backtrack the whole 10-ish km's back out again. Sigh.
After finally coming back out onto Gunn Point Road, we drove the rest of the way up to the coast. The tide was well out, leaving a vast expanse of muddy sand (criss-crossed with multiple tracks from the quadbikes hooning up and down the beach). We scoffed a much-awaited lunch under the only tree along the sandy bank.
We also had a quick stop at the boat ramp. This turned out to be a pretty unexciting spot to visit unless you were actually intending to launch a boat there. Although with the tide out, we were wondering how anyone managed the task of launching into the narrow creek, which ran exactly perpendicular to the ramp, and was only a couple of metres wide at the time of our visit. Obviously high tide makes a huge difference.
The day was rounded off (after a couple of hours rest under the aircon at home) with another trip to Mindil Beach markets. And yet another spectacular Darwin sunset.
(Oh - and looking at the photos below, just remembered that we also paid a quick visit to Howard Springs. Very nice, but all fenced off. Did see a couple of turtles though, and plenty of little fish)
