An interview with myself: Part 2

Q. What have you been enjoying the most since arriving in Darwin?

A.  Oohh, let me see.  A number of things really.  There are markets scattered around  the city area, especially on weekends.  Walking through the Mindl Beach markets on sunset is a vibrant and lively experience.  Getting some dinner from the dozens of international food vans and then sitting on the beach to watch the sun finish its journey for the day is a tradition up here.  I love having all the wild birds right outside my door – flocks of big red-tailed black cockatoos flying overhead, all sorts of parrots and honeyeaters flitting through our garden, storks and ducks flying between the lagoons scattered over the plains.  We have a hundred, if not more, Rainbow Bee eaters which roost in a colony along our driveway.  It’s an amazing chorus of commotion as they all have a final dust bath and flutter to their selected branch.

Q. What other things are you looking forward to?

A. Definitely the wet season which will start making its presence known again around October.  We saw the tail end of the last one when we arrived, but it will be much more brilliant to see a full season of it next summer.  The thunder rolls across the countryside with an unforgiving rumble, combined with the display of lightening in every direction.  As the season moves on, the torrential rain becomes part of the extravaganza culminating in a deafening drum of water lashing foliage and rooves alike.

Q. What are you not looking forward to?

A. The storms I just mentioned are amazing, but more rain, more heat, means that there is an unbearably stifling humidity for much of the day.  This oppressive humidity is what I am not looking forward to at all.

Q. Where to from here?

A. From Darwin you mean?  Well, that is yet to be discussed but I have a few ideas.  If I tell you everything now though, you won’t have a reason to catch up with me later.

Interview complete.

An interview with myself: Part 1

Q. So how have you been since we last communicated?

A. Well, busy to put it in one word.  After packing up our lives in New Zealand we now live in Darwin, with a two week long stopover in South Australia.  It was a whirlwind period and I feel like I have lost the past few months.

Q. Are you happy to be back in Australia?  I know you missed it a lot while living in New Zealand.

A. Yes indeed,  I did miss Australia and have written in the past  how I pined for the sounds of the Australian bush, the smell of eucalyptus, the bright wide open spaces and so forth.  Having said that though, there were always going to be things I’d miss about New Zealand once I had left.  So while I am enjoying being back here, I often think about what I have left behind.  I anticipate moving back there again one day, perhaps in the not too distant future.

Q. Wow, breaking news, we will save that for another interview then!  So, what was your first impression of Darwin?

A. Having been here many times as a tour guide, I did have some idea what I was getting myself in to.  It has certainly grown in the past 10 years though, with several high rise buildings now giving a definitive urban outline to the skyline.  It is remains a lovely, tropical and sunny city surrounded by blue ocean and palm trees swaying in the breeze.  The ‘dry’ season has just begun so the savannah woodland which makes up most of the landscape here has begun to dry out.  We live about half an hour south of Darwin, so I enjoy a drive through this harsh environment which then gives way to the tropical parks and gardens of Darwin city.  It’s a nice transition.

TBC in the next post

be careful what you wish for...

There is an old English proverb which was used as a central theme for a short horror story in 1902.  The Author was W.W.Jacobs and the tale was titled ‘The Monkeys’ Paw’.  It is an early exemplification of the proverb - "be careful what you wish for, lest it come true".

It is too easy to wish we had more of some things, less of others, different jobs, better pay, more hair, less weight, new city, more time and so on.  Seldom do we reflect on what we already have and consider that if we didn’t currently have these things, would they also be on the wish list?  We don’t ask ourselves the questions that we really should – do we truly need what we don’t have and is wishing for it simply creating useless worry and a sense of loss for what we will probably never have?  And what if one of these wishes does eventuate, are we genuinely prepared for the changes and possible disruptions that will follow?  It is human nature to want for more; it is not human nature to think about consequences.  At least not this human.

The richest man is not he who has the most, but he who needs the least.—Unknown Author

So, hows it going so far?

A bit of deviation from my usual ranting and raving about Life.  As promised, I am going to use my blog, Facebook and emails to make contact with everyone about how the move is going.  This posting is going to be more about facts and events as opposed to fanciful philosophical prophecies.

After driving almost 3500kms over a 5 day period, we finally arrived at our new home in Darwin.  The house we are living in is little more than a renovated shed, divided into thirds making up 2 small bedrooms and a larger kitchen/living area.  It is cosy, but comfortable surrounded by 7 acres of land including lots of areas of lush tropical gardens full of palm trees and ferns.  There are also two large verandas which act as outdoor rooms and are great for relaxing under and eating meals outside.  All up, it is enough room for the two of us and considering it is rent free due to some very generous cousins owning the house, we have nothing to complain about at all.  The property is about 30km outside of the city surrounded by similar properties and native scrub. It still feels like we are ‘visiting’ but with time, it will become home.

The dogs are coping with the heat OK.  A bit of a shock for them, although the two weeks down south did give them a taste of 30 degree plus heat.  Their fur shedding has gone in to overdrive since arriving up here though, leaving a trail of hair as they walk around.

It is still the ‘wet’ season up here so there have been daily storms and showers, keeping the humidity at a premium level of discomfort.  Nigh time temperatures get down to 25 and then back up to 33-34 during the day, so the trackies and jumpers have all been relegated to the bottom drawers of the cupboards.

As expected, Darwin has grown since we last visited 10 years ago.  There are a number of new high rise apartments which have transformed the city from a low tropical city to a modern metropolis.  Entire city streets which were once backpacker strips and vacant lots are now decorated with cafes and restaurants of all nationalities.  While never really been a sleepy village, it has apparently livened up in recent years.  There is also a large development at the old wharf which is now a fancy residential and restaurant district.

One of the great things about living here is the amount of native bird life in Darwin.  There are no feral black birds and starlings up here.  Instead we have flocks or Red-tailed Black Cockatoos alighting in our trees, Rainbow Bee eaters swishing through the air in search of insects and Red Winged Parrots dodging the tree tops on their way to the nearby lagoons.  These are but a few of the number of native bird species I see from our property here.  There are also a myriad of different coloured butterflies, possums, bandicoots, reptiles, spiders (some as big as my hand) and snakes. A few minute ago a tree snake fell from one of the palms about 2 metres from where I am sitting with a gecko in its mouth!

I recently took up a position with Conservation Volunteers Australia as their NT regional manager.  It will be a bit of a change for me and be more administrative than my previous positions but I am really looking forward to the change.  The role is overseeing all the conservation projects which are underway in the Northern Territory plus to seek funding and resources to expand.  There are a few big new exploration and mining projects about to start in the region which are always looking to contribute positively to conservation projects, so I am hoping to hit them up for some cash!

So that is the gist of things at the moment.  It has been really busy and will continue to be so for sometime no doubt.  I will write a similar 'dull narrative' again in a month or so as an update, but for now, time to get to back my fanciful philosophical prophecies........