3925 I’m not sure what it is. I don’t drink much at all. I’ll go months without a single beer. But when I’m traveling the inner Bavarian come out of me. I still don’t drink much but I do like to sample the local offerings. This is, as it says, the largest beer in Australia, the Darwin Stubby.
3926 The Humpty Doo Hotel. Their logo looks a lot like the UT Hook ‘em Horns.
3931 Part of the view from the Window on the Wetlands patio. The long curving billabong had a lot of waterfowl activity. It’s part of a cattle station (Aussie for ranch). The road past the billabong is the way to the river cruise.
3956 Our first croc jump of the day. You can see the tops of his rear legs. They’re green on top at his age with a yellow to white belly.
3969 This is the second jumping croc. He’s darker with darker spots but still green and yellow. Can’t see his back feet.
Nov 3 - Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. The ‘Top End’ as they call the Northern Territory (and the Kimberly, part of West Australia) is very different from southern Australia and Darwin is the largest city. You don’t have to venture very far inland to be in the middle of nowhere, the Outback. Darwin is hot, and as we’re just at the beginning of their wet season, getting humid. Last time we were here it was the middle of the wet season and I can tell you it was far worse.
First let me say something about Top End Aussies (Top Enders, as they call themselves). They are warm and friendly people who love to have a good time and tell a good story. I love them. But, let’s put it nicely, they march to the beat of a drum we can’t even hear. It may not even be a drum. For example, to adjust to Darwin time we did not move our clocks and watches forward one hour as you do in almost the entire world. We only moved them forward 30 minutes. This place is a half hour off from almost everyone else in the world. I have been to two other places where they are a half hour off but they are small places in the middle of nowhere as I remember. This is a major city on a large island, continent in fact, in a highly industrialized and forward thinking nation.
I can’t explain it and so far the explanations I’ve gotten are not satisfactory. The Northern Territory holds 17% of Australia’s land mass and only 1% of the population. That’s a population density of one person per 3 square miles. If you travel from Darwin to Broome (Broome is in the Kimberly, an even more sparsely populated area at one person per 12 square miles.) on the northwest coast you go 1,250 miles and pass through only 9 communities. Some of them are so small that if you sneeze, you’ll miss them. Or maybe it’s just because they spend all their time standing upside down. I’ll just have to stick my diggery (sp?) do in my kit bag with my tucker, throw the whole thing in the billabong, get my pet wombat and go walk about. By the way, did I say I love the language? I really do.
We’re heading out of Darwin to take a cruise on the Adelaide River. The area we’re going to is the mouth of the river. It ends in a very large wetland, home to many species of birds, mosquitos, ants, snakes, spiders and the very dangerous saltwater crocodile. I don’t know about the birds but some species of all the rest of those can kill you. The crocs are misnamed really because they live in brackish and fresh water as well. They are really an estuarian crocodile that survives well in almost any wet environment. They’ve nicknamed them ‘Salties’ down here and they are a very aggressive croc with no fear of humans and the proclivity for sneak attacks. The locals treat them with great respect and if there’s anything I’ve learned from travel it’s “Anything the locals respect, you better respect as well.”
Our drive out to the river will take about an hour to go almost 40 miles. Once out of Darwin we didn’t see much in the way of civilization. We stoped in the village of Humpty Doo to check out an Outback bush style pub. Well, it turns out that Humpty Doo is a village in the same way that those little desert hamlets of the Mojave in the US Southwest are villages. It’s at the intersection of the Stuart Highway, a large road used by road trains (Powerful semi-trucks pulling as many as 5 long trailers) with the Arnhem Highway, a major although 2-lane thoroughfare. Anyway, at this intersection is a large, drive-thru liquor store called the Thirsty Camel, a gas station and the Humpty Doo Hotel.
You may be able to get a room at the hotel but, like many colonial era stage hotels in Pennsylvania most of it seems to be taken up with the pub. Being early Saturday afternoon the large outside porch was filled with locals in various sized groups and in all sorts of clothing, from pretty nice to the somewhat raggedy getup of a hard working laborer. I was on the pub side of the bus when we pulled in and they all looked up with a bit of a startled look on their faces. This startled look became curiosity as we started piling off the bus. The first people out the front are handicapped as seats are reserved for them near the door. The locals must have thought we were an excursion from a board and care facility. Then the rest of us got out and they had their answer, tourists.
Once inside the pub we found it was fairly full of locals as well. The bar runs almost all the way across the back of the room and of course pub grub is available in addition to the beer and whisky. Yikes! Jack Daniels is over $100 a liter and that’s 100 Aussie. That’s about $110 US. I’m not sure who has been in charge of marketing at Jack Daniels over the past 40 years but I have to admire their collective abilities. Almost without exception, anywhere you find people of Caucasian decent you will fine Jack Daniels. All over Europe it’s wildly popular. You can buy t-shirts, caps, everything from clothing to candy bars with the Jack Daniels logo. Apparently Australia is no exception to that rule. Who would had thought that Tennessee sour-mash whisky would appeal to such a wide variety of tastes and cultures.
All over Australia the standard size of a beer is a pint. In most places they have a smaller sized container, like our US 12 ounce, that they call a ‘stubby’. Being a little different on the Top Side, they also have a ‘stubby’ but theirs is the largest beer in Australia at 2 liters. It’s in a huge bottle but it necks down to a regular size bottle cap. Appropriately enough it brewed by the Northern Territory Brewing Co. I’m not much of a drinker but I’ve got to have this bottle as a souvenir. I ordered on, unopened, from the pub lass and when she brought it out I was shocked to see that it comes in its own carrier box. What a hoot!
The tour includes a small draft beer or soft drink and when we picked ours up we asked a local couple if we could share their table and they said of course. It was a stand up style, round, tall table. There were some tall stools around but our hosts weren’t sitting so we didn’t either. The gent’s introduced himself as ‘Crash’. I told him I had worked with a lady I called ‘Crash’. I told him that she was a very active person and occasionally had a wreck of some sort, skiing or biking. He simply said, ‘Motorbikes’ with a grin and I noticed that he had no front teeth on top. That explains his name. (I’m glad to report that my ‘Crash’ has all her teeth. Her mishaps seemed to involve her lower extremities not her head or face.) He confided that he didn’t like the name at first but came to be quite proud of it. He said that many of his current mates wouldn’t even know is given name. He leaned over and whispered, “It’s Christian.” We had a nice chat and all too soon it was time to get back on the bus. I could have spent more time in the Humpty Doo Pub with the Top Enders.
On the way to the Adelaide River we stopped at the Window on the Wetlands. It’s a small visitor’s center located at the highest point on the river’s floodplain. There’s an open patio on top of the building that lets you look out over the vast, very flat area. It’s definitely big sky country because no mountain ranges are visible in any direction. There are eight rivers that drain the Top End and all their catchments combine to form this coastal wetland. When I looked to the west I knew immediately that we’d visited this center before. Last time we were here in 2002 we took a trip to Kakadu National Park to see some Aboriginal petroglyphs and tour the park to check out the wildlife. That trip stopped here on the way out. Kakadu is another 50 miles from here or further. There’s a billabong near the center and there were many birds using it in the heat of the afternoon, some waders, others swimmers. I saw ducks, geese and a very large crane but I don’t know the specific species of any of them. I did see one hornbill and some white egrets that I recognized.
The interpretive center on the first floor was very informative and if I’d had the patience to pay attention I could have identified the birds but when I’m traveling I really like to be outside and involved when it’s something natural I’m looking at. Inside looking and reading are more my taste when it’s a historical or architectural subject. They have posters of the snakes, mosquitos, ants and other inhabitants of Australia. One interesting one was about mosquitos. The poster shows pictures of 72 species and had a little map of Australia in the corner of each picture showing the species’ range. Almost all of them live here in the Top End.
It was a short drive to the river from the wetland’s center. We lucked out today because there are 3 busses on this tour and we are in the third. When we got to the river cruise we discovered that the first two busses have been on the trip together. We’re going to have the ship to ourselves. Our river boat is a two deck, 53-foot catamaran with a very squared off superstructure to give everyone a good view of the activity on the river. The top deck is open and the bottom deck, because it’s only a few feet above the water, is glassed in to keep the crocs out of the boat. We chose to go to the upper deck even though it’s not air conditioned because it provides a better view and being outdoors and feeling the breeze makes small boat cruising a much better experience.
They’ve been interacting with the crocs in this area for so long that the boat will attract any that are hungry. Crocs are territorial so there’s rarely more than one coming to the boat at a time. They have little one-person stands on the second deck that stick out from either side amidships. From this perch the crew uses a long pole with a rope attached to suspend meat over the side to get the croc to jump. If you’ve ever seen Swamp People, my current favorite and the only reality show I watch, you know that alligator fishermen suspend their bait on hooks about 3-4 feet above the water and the alligators have to jump a bit to get it. The saltwater crocodiles in this area are prodigious leapers. It’s a natural behavior, not taught and they can get prodigious height on their jumps. We saw three crocs jump and the youngest, smallest, first one got the largest percentage of his body out of the water, you could see the tops of his back legs.
They will approach the boat and then swim nearby. The crew member has to slap the meat at the end of the rope in the water to get them really close. Then they hold it just over the water to give the croc a good smell. If the croc’s head is flat on the water nothing is going to happen. When they raise their snout vertical and sink just a little, that’s the signal they are about to jump. The power for their jump comes from their tail and they use their legs for directional control, like little ailerons or rudders. It’s an impressive sight when they get going straight up after the bait. They make them jump three times on each side of the boat before they let them have the big hunks of meat they use to get the show going.
This performance was repeated more, each time it was a larger crock. The last of the three was a whopper. He was much darker color on the top, same indicator of age as on alligators in the US. I’d guess he was around 15 feet long, give or take a foot. He was missing one of his legs and only got about half his body out of the water. Nevertheless, he was an impressive sight.
Several types of birds have been circling the boat. There were sea eagles and kites, their specific species unknown to me. On the way back to the pier I found out why they were following us. The crew stood in the little crock fishing perches and threw small pieces of chicken in the air which the birds swooped down and caught in their talons. Since I was standing right by the perch I was getting a good view of the action. Those birds never missed. The concentration it must take to catch the chicken pieces has to be extraordinary, except in the case of these birds. Apparently they can all do it. I got a very blurry picture of one just about to make the grab. The chicken is no more than one inch from its talons. The bird’s speed brakes are obviously on as his tail feathers and those at the ends of his wings are spread wide to catch as much air as possible. His head is turned, not watching where he’s going but looking directly at the chicken as his talons head for it. Keep your eye on the ball is good advice for batters, golfers and birds of prey.
It was a great cruise and a very nice day.
Back at the ship we were a little late for dinner but they’re having an Aussie BBQ on the lido deck so that’s where we headed. They were grilling salmon, shrimp, ribs, steak, two kinds of sausages and chicken. I prefer to get a sampler plate and have them put a small amount of each on it. Sometimes they overdo it and I get more food than I want. Tonight it was ribs, part of a sausage, shrimp and a baked potato. It was all excellent. For desert they had tropical fruit, dragon, passion and lychee were my selection and it made an attractive looking plate. Dragon fruit is red, yellow and green on the outside with appendages that look like petals coming off the sides. Inside it’s firm and white with black seeds so small you don’t even notice them as you eat it. As exotic as it looks on the outside, the taste is so mild that it’s a bit disappointing. You only eat the white inside. Passion fruit is a dark brownish purple fruit about the size of an apricot. The skin is hard and when you cut it open there’s a fibrous red layer with a very white and creamy center. Again you only eat the white part, the red stuff may be edible but it’s very bitter. Lychees are small, about the size of a cherry tomato or a little larger. Skin not as tough and the entire inside, once again, is white but it’s all edible, except for the seed. This one is the most flavorful to me. They had other deserts but we stuck with the fruit. I’m telling you, if I ate this well at home I’d be a lot better off.
Our entertainer, Radim Zenkl is from the Czech Republic and plays the mandolin and flute. He has brought several flutes with him that are new to me. For example, a Czech shepherd’s flute that is just a reed tube, no holes. He managed to get a lot of music out of that reed. I think I heard at least six different notes, plus various sounds. He also played a much larger, about the size of a contrabassoon, very strange sounding flute. The closest thing to it in sound that I’ve ever heard is the heavily vibrato Australian diggery do. He was a very high energy performer and funny. I think everyone enjoyed him. I know we did.
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