Leaving Cairns and arriving in Darwin, Australia

A second night sleeping on my front did a little to ease the burning on my back but having to get up early meant that I could not lounge around much longer before I had to pack up, check out and get myself to the airport.

The Canadian couple were up early and headed on out to drive their way to a few of the nice spots just outside of Cairns city centre, while my other dorm buddy, a Frenchman from Toulouse, was packing up also as he was due to go meet some friends and also visit a place where they would teach you both how to make and to play the digereedoo.

Knowing that it took even the great Rolf Harris a good six months to get the breathing right for this extremely tricky on instruments, I did not envy him the lessons, but thought that at the least the learning how they made them woud be fun and almost wished I had thought to see them do it on an earlier day.

Down in reception I checked out and learned that the hostel operated a hourly run to the airport which I had just missed by minutes and so I could either wait for an hour or call a taxi, but thankfully as I had planned in advance I could wait the hour and still get to the airport in plenty of time.

Heading back to my room I was spotted by my French dormmate who was about to play a game of cards with an eager looking local boy, but neither knew how to play poker. It turned out that the kid was big for his age and could hardly count let alone read and I cursed my foolishness as I had to fruitlessly try and teach the pair of them how to play when they could barely shuffle the cards properly.

I exscused myself pretty soon after it became apparent that the youths attention was waning and instead he wanted to show a few card tricks, which I let him do before returning to my spot near the receptionand waited for the minivan to collect me. As I had a few minutes to kill I liberated a book from their exchange book shelf, chosing a book written in 1966 about the Hells Angels by a sympathetic freelance newspaper hack who actually took time to ride with them ( or drive as it turned out ) and know a few on a first name basis instead of basing his works on gossip, scaremongering and the usual mix of urban myth and legend.

The only thing that surprised me was that by the end of the book it read as if the entire Hells Angels were almost folding in upon itself and even at its height had only a few hundred members, but by todays reckoning they are still very much alive and kicking ass with chapters all over the world and membership in the thousands.

I am very glad that I was not in a hurry as not only was the pickup a few minutes late but his collection run lasted almost half an hour more before he headed off towards the airport, which itself was only a ten minute drive away and yet my gladness turned to manic frustration and anger as I found out that Jetstar airwards considers a flight to Darwn necessary to leave from the International Terminal and not from the Domestic.

Apparently it has something to do with that they use the same plane to fly a brief stopover in Darwin before flying on to Singapore and thus everything needs to go through security, just in case as it were. The International Terminal was only a ten minute walk away but that was enough to give me the raging hump as my back protested strongly at any suggestion of me putting its combined weight on my still sore shoulders or back, thus I ended up craddling my rucksack in my arms as I walked, forced into taking brief pauses and switching arms as I went.

Checking in was a breeze and I began to think that things were starting to loop up until I got randomly checked for a second time on only my second internal flight, and I began to think that these random checks were not random at all. Once through security I grabbed a bit of sushi and internally objected vehemently at being charged over AUD $4 for a simple orange juice.

In the departure hall was a huge costumed kangaroo, which a few tourists chose to have their photo taken with, while I traded travel horror stories with a fellow Brit in the line who seemed to hate everything and everyone over here in Oz, so much so that I almost felt bad for her, til I remembered that half of travelling is overcoming obstacles with a smile on your face. While it is true that Aussies have no real idea of good customer services techniques, neither do they dont expect a tip and as often they are fellow travellers trying to eek out a few more bucks to go partying with after work it is hardly surprising, whether it be a hostel or a 5 star hotel resort.

Australia is known for its travellers, its barbeques, its all night drinking parties, its weather, its surfers and its aboriginal arts and craftwork, not its international customer services skills.

The flight over was unremarkable and was only marred by Jetstar deciding that the flight isnt long enough to warrant free food, but not wanting to keep their passengers hungry or thirsty went upand down the aisles often offering to sell food and drinks at high prices. The worst rub was that they were renting video screens for AUD $10 for each leg of the journey from Cairns to Darwin and then a second rental fee for Darwin to Singapore although they didnt say til late into the flight that the flight time was not long enough to watch a complete film on the first leg as they turned off the entertainment system way before the plane touched down again.

Such greed and thoughtlessness on the part of Jetstar was enough to make me almost regret flying with them, til I remembered that I was meant to be doing this as cheaply as possible, as that did not include splashing out on AUD $20 to see a film I have either already seen or only want to see to relieve a few minutes of boredom.

Landing in Darwin I had a few minutes to grab my stuff before the nearest minibus took a group of us travellers into town for AUD $9 each, which I thought was pretty reasonable even if the trip was only about ten or fifteen minutes long.

Riding behind me was a young lass, also from the UK, who was taking her third large travelling trip around various parts of the world. I could not help but ask how she could afford to be on her third big trip at such a young age and she replied that apart from living at home she was a uni graduate who was prepared to work for around five to ten months to save the travel money and then once she arrived at a place she would then find work enough to get by on, as well as staying in one place long enough to meet a good group of friends and buy local food form the supermarket instead of hitting the restaurants like I had been doing. One last point was that she did not really like to drink that much, or smoke, which again cut down her living expenses quite a lot so as long as she did not plan to do too many of the big daytrips she could spend several months in one place on a budget that almost paid for itself through the day or night shift work she always found.

I pondered on this as I reached my hostel and found that although the reception was closed for a few hours, they had set aside my door key in an envelope just around the corner, so I grabbed it and headed on over to my dorm room to unpack, finding immediate relief that there was lockers inside my room both big enough for my rucksack and free as long as I had my own padlock, which I did.

Two free internet computers in the common room, being only AUD $20 a night and being very central to the town and ocean view put a huge smile on my face, only slightly dampened by the fact that the place had no actual wifi facility and also that the pool was out of action due to the heavy flooding in recent weeks had made it unsafe ( how I have no idea, as it looked fine and perfect to me, but there you go !).

Today being Australia Day, I expected the town to be buzzing with excitement but a mix of heatwave, heavy rain, test match cricket, australia open tennis and the fact that Darwin centre just isnt that big meant that a few of the bars were full to capacity while others did not even bother to open. Walking around to get a bite to eat my eye was caught by a club, that was onloy open three nights a week, a rock and country music place that I might visit later in the week when I plan on getting pissed and a restaurant that had a great variety of food if only it wasnt all AUD $25 and upward for a standard meal not including any drink.

Instead I walked on until I found a Nando's chicken place where the girl behind the counter could only have been 18 if she was a day, and the prices was cheap enough for me to afford both a meal and a drink for under AUD $12 before heavind on back via the Esplanade.

Wandering down by the ocean side I was surprised to note that there was no real beaches within eyeshot and came across a guy with a huge camera and lens wh owas out hoping to take a photo of the imminent solar eclipse. Regrettably the cloud was out in full force and I dont think that he got his shot and after a quick natter I came back to catch an early night and hope that tomorrow I can wake up feeling good enough to book something for the next few days.