A day in the Big City.
The Northern Territory encompases about 1/6th the land of Australia, but only around 1% of its population. Half of those folks live in Darwin - maybe 100,000 people - which makes it the biggest city within a multi-day drive in any direction. Imagine a place twice the size of Texas, where the only big city is College Station.
On the morning of our second full day there, we walked from our hotel over to the Botanic Gardens and found this unusual silver palm with its black fruiting thingies.
Rainbow lorikeets are beautiful nectar-eating parrots that you can buy as pets over here, but are native to Australia, New Guinea, Indonesia and some of the nearby islands. They are common and show up in noisy groups wherever there are blooming trees. They can be hard to get a good look at, despite the crazy colors. Its difficult to see in this picture, but their heads are a rich blue-purple.
We next made a stop at Darwin National Park, where you can walk (or squish) right out into the mangroves. There were little mudskippers in the puddles and giant snails up in the trees.
We stopped for lunch at a place on the harbor called Buzz Cafe that serves modern Aussie food. This is the view from our table...
...and here is our lovely lunch. There was smoked salmon, cream cheese and pesto on crostini, and some kind of local fish (not barramundi!) with yoghurt raita, tabouli, and Indian flatbread chips. We followed that up with the best desert in the whole wide world... sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce and ice cream. We had three versions of this on the trip and they were each indescribably wonderful.
This is a 3 foot long Yellow-Spotted Monitor. He was hanging out on the lawn between the parking lot and the beach, near the cafe. We watched him digging his lunch out of the grass... couldn't quite tell if it was eating worms or bugs but he was thoroughly engrossed in his task and only moved when a woman with a stroller passed close by.
On the morning of our second full day there, we walked from our hotel over to the Botanic Gardens and found this unusual silver palm with its black fruiting thingies.
Rainbow lorikeets are beautiful nectar-eating parrots that you can buy as pets over here, but are native to Australia, New Guinea, Indonesia and some of the nearby islands. They are common and show up in noisy groups wherever there are blooming trees. They can be hard to get a good look at, despite the crazy colors. Its difficult to see in this picture, but their heads are a rich blue-purple.
We next made a stop at Darwin National Park, where you can walk (or squish) right out into the mangroves. There were little mudskippers in the puddles and giant snails up in the trees.
We stopped for lunch at a place on the harbor called Buzz Cafe that serves modern Aussie food. This is the view from our table...
...and here is our lovely lunch. There was smoked salmon, cream cheese and pesto on crostini, and some kind of local fish (not barramundi!) with yoghurt raita, tabouli, and Indian flatbread chips. We followed that up with the best desert in the whole wide world... sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce and ice cream. We had three versions of this on the trip and they were each indescribably wonderful.
This is a 3 foot long Yellow-Spotted Monitor. He was hanging out on the lawn between the parking lot and the beach, near the cafe. We watched him digging his lunch out of the grass... couldn't quite tell if it was eating worms or bugs but he was thoroughly engrossed in his task and only moved when a woman with a stroller passed close by.
Labels: Aus 06
posted by Michelle at 9:05 PM
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