Darwin and Christmas..

(potp: is this just piggyback or something else..?)

(this could have just been right after the act above..but you actually see a road casualty here. don't ask who it was; and please, mind the tongue)

WELCOME TO CHRISTMAS WONDERLAND

Link to the pictures!!

Hello back! It's been a little while since my last decent post. As you know, everyone's busy these days. As you may know, my primary reason to be here in Singapore is be an Intern with Infineon. The project where I am involved in is just about to take off. Pretty exciting and interesting. Will keep me busy..

Some while ago, Tiger Airways (a total NO FRILLS Asian airline, where they do not even serve any water and where you have to buy blankets!) had a promotion for Darwin, Australia on the net. As everyone knows, it is always more exciting to go somewhere than staying at home. So my friend Christoph and me decided to spend Christmas there.

We went on the night from the 23rd to the 24th of December, so we just arrived at breakfast time in this very sleepy city. Fair enough, it was Christmas Eve and Saturday. No reason for any local to hang around 7am like those crazy German tourists.

What we realized very soon, was that there was hardly any Christmas decoration around. Only the so-called 'Main Street' (Mitchell Str) had some lights in the trees. As soon as we went to residential areas or just away from the 'central business district', we could hardly believe that it was Christmas at all. This was all the more remarkable for us since we just came from Christmas-crazy Singapore, where you could think that the locals would love to have invented the festival in the first place.

(Darwin on Christmas eve..hardly to imagine, but it was even hotter than in Singapore.)

LORD, GIVE ME RAIN!

Darwin was really deserted that Christmas Eve. As far as we knew there should have been more than 50.000 people in the city. Well, we spend the first day renting a car and planning for the next two days. I also have to admit that it was the first time in my life that I have been to a dance-club on the 24th of December and that I went to church in a slightly tipsy condition later.

('In Rome do like the Romans do')

We arrived at a modern, protestant church just before 11pm, sat down and waited for the midnight mess to begin. It must have be a sign or portent that just the very moment when the preacher arrived at the lectern an incredible thunderstorm with heaviest monsoon rain broke out that effectively silenced all the preacher's efforts (which did not prevent him from continuing as if there was nothing going on. Nobody could understand him anymore). Funny thing, I wonder if the Lord himself was dissatisfied with the Christmas mess (which was..let me put it this way..suboptimal)

LAGUNES AND SOCIAL INSECTS

We soon discovered that it was a good idea to rent a car. We were supposed to be penalized with an extra charge by the rental company for driving on gravel road. We took the chance and were not dissapointed. Litchfield and Kakadu Nationalpark have plenty of beautiful, deserted lagunes and travel routes. Nonetheless, all the bathing was mostly not that refreshing..one reason to advocate even stronger for airconditioning in a car! Soo damn important in this part of the world.

(a Termites nest..at first we had not the faintest idea what it was. we went closer, tapped and knocked a little bit and were probably very lucky that the whole tribe just had a nap)

Most astonishing were the Termites nests you can find here. These ochre-coloured rocket-shaped things sometimes are spread on large, plain areas. They look misplaced and alien, but very impressive.

Feel free to browse the pics for 1 minute or 2. I will not bore you here with a detailed travel report, don't worry ;-) Just so much: Having a car for the 3 days was absolutely important. On our last day, when we headed back to Darwin, the sky virtually opened to empty buckets of water on us. Well, it is monsoon season, after all. We were even told that it can even happen in Jan or Feb that Darwin is totally cut off for days, because of floodings all around the city. That is why the amount of people there decreases from usually about 100.000 to 40.000 in February. Everybody seems to escape (understandably), except the few crazy, foreign tourists who deliberately go there :-)

I wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Maik

(Where are you hiding, Schnappi...?)