had another night of my pump alarming far too often, it reminds me of what it was like when we had a small baby😜. Matt was back up on the roof of the bus to finish up all the connections for the new solar panels and then creating space in the boot for the new battery. He does have to create a new mount for the battery but the beginning work is done. With the new solar panels fully operational, they are producing 3 times the amount of power that the old panels produced. I kept myself busy with more Inphase work and looking ahead to where to explore next.
We then headed out to the Mindil beach area and parked Bridget up near Darwin High School, which is next to the Darwin Museum. We took a stroll down the coastal pathways to the museum and then spent the heat of the day inside the cool of the museum and myriad of rooms of displays. There was a giant croc called sweetheart, stuffed animal displays of the local fauna, fossil displays of the local megafauna, models of the types of sea life, a huge display dedicated to Cyclone Tracy, historic stories about the political history and formation of the Northern Territory, and a big collection of all types of fishing boats used over the past century or two in the local seas. The display on Cyclone Tracy was very interesting, and it had a phone that would ring in one display, and so Matt answered it and it had a message about the long range forecast for the incoming cyclone. There was a booth that you hear a recording made by a Catholic priest of the storm itself, so you could hear what it was like. After all this learning, our brains were exploding so we headed back to the bus for lunch and a lie down, while the generator was running so we could have the air con running. We are spoilt.
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| took this one for Juliet, she loves big spiders. |
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| cyclone Tracey exhibit |
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| cyclone Tracey exhibit |
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| cyclone Tracey exhibit |
We headed back out and down the hill to Mindil Beach where we saw the big race in the annual beer can regatta that was being run at the beach. Lots of people about cheering and watching on. The sand on the beach came alive if you stood still, with most of the shells containing hermit crabs of sorts and they would move when they thought it was safe. The popular Mindil Beach markets were on, so we headed to the park and walked along with the other several hundred people walking past all the street food stalls and vans, clothes, jewellery, art, herbal shops and the like. There was a local entertainer performing and people everywhere. Matt got some Japanese food and later some ice cream to cool us down. We enjoyed being back on the beach before heading up to the lookout to watch the sunset. This was our last chance to be at the coast for awhile and the last Darwin sunset. People started to gather on the beach to watch as well. It was still about 29 degrees with a slight breeze, a beautiful evening.
We headed back to the caravan park for my IV care and connection for my nutrition and to rest up, we move on tomorrow.
