Friday, 25th June
Last night we visited the Mindal Night Markets, which are held every Thursday and Sunday evenings and are rather an institution here in Darwin. As parking in Darwin is a very major problem, we decided to take the bus organised by the caravan park - $8 each sounded pretty reasonable to us. Along with 57 other tourists, we were picked up at 5.00 pm, after a little drama (see the next paragraph) and taken to the markets. I think every tourist in the region was there, along with half the population of Darwin! The best way to describe the market is to take all the people and stalls at the opening night of the Taste of Tasmania and combine them with Salamanca Market on the busiest day of the year – and squash it all into Salamanca Market! There were people, bugs, food smells, bugs, people and more bugs. The idea is to take a chair, buy from the many food stalls, then sit and watch the sun set over Mindal Beach – along with everyone else. The sunset was very nice. The photo is just a very small section of the crowd, before the sunset rush. Apart from the large variety of food stalls, mainly Asian, there were the usual jewellery, bags, massages, handmade soaps and sarongs that are normally seen at markets. We have now been and never have to go again.
The little drama was discovering (about five minutes before we were due to leave) that the bathroom overhead cupboard and the bench was absolutely crawling with ants! When we removed the towels (no ants in them, thank goodness), we discovered ant eggs in the corner of the overhead cupboard. Half a tin of Peau Beau was quickly emptied, we crossed our fingers and left. On returning, the thousands of dead ants were vacuumed and the eggs were sent to ant heaven as well. We bought some ant traps this morning and placed in the overhead cupboard. Half an hour later, ants were having a lovely time exploring the walls of the bedroom – the remainder of the Peau Beau was used! Further checking revealed large numbers of eggs and ants in the first crease of the accordion door on the bathroom. Thank goodness we had purchased another tin of that wonderful insect poison. Now we wait and see!!!
This morning I made the discovery that the nice, new front loading washing machines in the laundry are extremely small and didn’t hold a normal wash load. At $4 a load and with the amount of washing generated in this heat, laundry could be a tad expensive. We do get free detergent though.
Grocery shopping, and ant hunting, filled in the morning and this afternoon we checked out the Casuarina Shopping Centre, which is much larger, and busier, than Palmerston. As we were in the region of the Casuarina Nature Reserve, we decided to have a quick look and discovered there is a nudist beach in this area. Unfortunately, we would have had to walk 500 metres and didn’t have our bathers with us. We did get out of the car and walk to the beach near the surf club and nearly expired with the reflected heat from the sand – probably explained why no one was sunbaking. As we returned to the car, we passed an outdoor beach shower – complete with male nudist!
Last night we visited the Mindal Night Markets, which are held every Thursday and Sunday evenings and are rather an institution here in Darwin. As parking in Darwin is a very major problem, we decided to take the bus organised by the caravan park - $8 each sounded pretty reasonable to us. Along with 57 other tourists, we were picked up at 5.00 pm, after a little drama (see the next paragraph) and taken to the markets. I think every tourist in the region was there, along with half the population of Darwin! The best way to describe the market is to take all the people and stalls at the opening night of the Taste of Tasmania and combine them with Salamanca Market on the busiest day of the year – and squash it all into Salamanca Market! There were people, bugs, food smells, bugs, people and more bugs. The idea is to take a chair, buy from the many food stalls, then sit and watch the sun set over Mindal Beach – along with everyone else. The sunset was very nice. The photo is just a very small section of the crowd, before the sunset rush. Apart from the large variety of food stalls, mainly Asian, there were the usual jewellery, bags, massages, handmade soaps and sarongs that are normally seen at markets. We have now been and never have to go again.
The little drama was discovering (about five minutes before we were due to leave) that the bathroom overhead cupboard and the bench was absolutely crawling with ants! When we removed the towels (no ants in them, thank goodness), we discovered ant eggs in the corner of the overhead cupboard. Half a tin of Peau Beau was quickly emptied, we crossed our fingers and left. On returning, the thousands of dead ants were vacuumed and the eggs were sent to ant heaven as well. We bought some ant traps this morning and placed in the overhead cupboard. Half an hour later, ants were having a lovely time exploring the walls of the bedroom – the remainder of the Peau Beau was used! Further checking revealed large numbers of eggs and ants in the first crease of the accordion door on the bathroom. Thank goodness we had purchased another tin of that wonderful insect poison. Now we wait and see!!!
This morning I made the discovery that the nice, new front loading washing machines in the laundry are extremely small and didn’t hold a normal wash load. At $4 a load and with the amount of washing generated in this heat, laundry could be a tad expensive. We do get free detergent though.
Grocery shopping, and ant hunting, filled in the morning and this afternoon we checked out the Casuarina Shopping Centre, which is much larger, and busier, than Palmerston. As we were in the region of the Casuarina Nature Reserve, we decided to have a quick look and discovered there is a nudist beach in this area. Unfortunately, we would have had to walk 500 metres and didn’t have our bathers with us. We did get out of the car and walk to the beach near the surf club and nearly expired with the reflected heat from the sand – probably explained why no one was sunbaking. As we returned to the car, we passed an outdoor beach shower – complete with male nudist!
2 comments:
Should your ants return, I've found the best solution is Home Brand Surface Spray from Coles or Woolworths. It's worked better at home than any brand name products, and I've heard good reports from family who've needed to use it in caravans too.
Trust me. I'm anonymous.
I'm on the next plane up there!
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