Fireworks and Return to Darwin

Sunday night we had a great time at the Batchelor Oval, watching the Territory Day fireworks. Seems like the whole town turned out, and there was the usual "sausage sizzle" run by the Batchelor School. The crackers were very good, funded by the state government, and the mayor gave a short address. The kids in our campground also let a few crackers off, but we settled down to our usual silence and had a peaceful night.

Monday, here we are all checked in to our hotel, in downtown Darwin. The truck has been returned to the Apollo depot, and our camping gear disposed of. The day is very hot, as usual here, and we look forward to some good meals, and a bit of relaxation before we start the long trip home, via The Alice.

Made it to Darwin

Well, we made it to Darwin safely, Qantas were a little late, but no other dramas. We are now in range of the satelite modem, and the fact that the blog is updated is proof that it works! I could've used the Bigpond wireless from here, but I wanted to test the modem before we go out of mobile phone range.

Darwin is hot, fine & very steamy. We picked up our rented 4WD camper today. It is a Toyota HiLux ute with a camper thingy on the back tray. It's been well used - it is a 2005 model with 140,000km on the clock. In good shape, but the wear and tear of its life on the Aussie outback roads show. The air con works well, which is just as well, because Clare is already wilting in this tropical heat.

Apollo are the rental company, and they are very well organised in briefing you about the vehicle and how to use it, and they show you a comprehensive DVD before they hand over the vehicle. What they are really well organised at is extracting your money, but we expected that, and we knew what the cost would be!

So tomorrow we set out for Victoria River. Stay tuned for further updates.

PS, I have to learn how to update this blog in Dutch, because the satellite system operates out of Holland, and obviously, Blogspot thinks we've suddenly become Dutch speakers! So I hope I publish it OK!!!