Cruise - Day 9 - 11 Sep

Big day out and about in Darwin today. We arrived in port at about 8am and gathered for our shore excursion at 9.15am. Soon after we had boarded the bus and were on our way to the Adelaide River to partake in a “Jumping Crocodile” cruise. It took us about an hour to get there, travelling through the edge of Darwin city from the pier and then sampling some Darwin suburbs as we headed down the Stuart Hwy (1497km to Alice Springs...that would be a daunting sign as you set off on THAT trip!), turned onto the Arnhem Hwy through Humpty Doo (gotta love that name) and eventually reaching our destination to board the 11am tour.

It was a fascinating scene as we took off up the river and came upon the first croc. The boat-hand tempts the croc with a pork chop tied to the end of a stick and eventually the croc jumps high, we all snap our cameras and grab superb action shots (see below). The boat's captain kept up a very informative narrative as we continued on our way, encountering numerous different crocs along the way.

We also came upon some sea eagles who were partial to the pork chops and grabbed them virtually under the croc's noses. Once again, I was on hand to catch the action shot – my little pink camera didn't let me down!

After an hour or so on the river, we were back on the bus and heading back into Darwin. Our on-board tour guide was also very informative and regaled us with stories and information ranging from mango trees to beer drinking competitions. We hopped off the bus in Darwin and spent an hour or two checking out the shops, eating some lunch (yummy Thai), and then decided to walk back to the pier which we'd been told was about a 15-20 minute walk. It was very hot! I was quite enjoying the walk and said to Gary “This reminds me of walking on the farm as a kid – hot and sort of in the middle of nowhere”. Gary replied “ This reminds me of the stupidest thing we ever did – not getting a taxi to the ship!” Did I mention it was HOT?!

So after the obligatory lining up to return through customs, we staggered aboard and I slipped up to the open deck for a refreshing dip while Gaz collapsed coma-like on the bed and then snored very loudly for the next few hours. Luckily they have a Romance Channel on the TV so I watched Sleepless in Seattle while he snored away.

We decided on an earlyish dinner to enable us to attend a concert by Trevor Knight which we really enjoyed – I even bought a CD and chatted with him after the show. I was a little embarrassed to admit to him the last album I had of his was an LP (yes kids, that's what they had before CDs) from the early 80's of folk songs. I was very happy to hear that he is about to do another album of folk songs. Yay!

At the conclusion of the show, the cruise director announced that they had unexpectedly obtained the rights to the All Blacks v Wallabies game and it had 20 minutes to run, broadcast on the huge screen on the open deck...and Australia was in front! Well I stampeded up the 5 flights of stairs just in time to see The All Blacks score a try to take the lead. Needless to say there was no fairytale ending – a sad end to a big day...and I still don't know if the Tiger's won tonight – it is on delay broadcast at 1am!

Need sleep...

PS – Good luck Warners Bay All Age Women Div J – go girls...win it for Grandma!