Trevor & Jonathans Cruise & Trip to the Far East and Australia 2016

Day 84 - Monday August 1st 2016 - Darwin, Northern Territory

So the day was finally here, the day that we said goodbye to our little metal home on wheels. We have to say our little van has been good to us. She’s never let us down, ever complained, always made it up the steepest hill and travelled down a few pindan un-made roads as well bless her.

Jonathan had the worst night sleep with the strangest dream ever, something to do with work population issues (read into that what you will), maybe it’s to do with all the family suddenly having babies and he’s thinking about all the extra Christmas presents? Anyway the lack of sleep was actually draining and he was not feeling well at all but knew we had to move on so you put on your brave face and you get on with it.

The first job of the day after bathrooms and breakfast was to sort out the van, finish the packing and chuck out all the used stuff and then give it the best clean that we could.

We ended up having piles for rubbish, piles to take on with us and piles to

donate once we handed the van back over. In the campervan hire depot in Perth we had noticed that they had a drop off point for part used items of food or anything that you wanted to leave behind that other campers might find useful. Now we had some good stuff to give away, the $60 campsite book, unused food, a bottle of wine, the two camp chairs and then there was the duvet and the two pillows.

So that was out first port of call, we drove up the road to the campervan hire depot and dropped off all the stuff that we weren’t going to chuck, hoping that someone would find at least some of it useful. At this point we didn’t drop the van off, partly because there was a crazy queue of pickups and drop offs but also we wanted to go to the hotel first and get rid of our cases.

We left the Britz/Mighty hire depot and headed off downtown to The Esplanade and the Hilton Double Tree Resort in Darwin, just across the road from a really nice park that runs along the top of the cliff. We knew that our room would not be ready but at least we could get rid of the cases and then know that the van could go back anytime that we fancied it.

With the cases dropped off we went for a little walk through the park and up into Darwin itself, mainly to use up the hours parking ticket that we had just bought. Once again our conversation turned completely to the agenda of our time in the UK prior to flying back home to Gran Canaria, it was certainly busy with planned trip to see just about everyone plus a few days for ourselves in London. It would be fair to say that the blues had set it a bit, knowing that our time away was reaching an end, knowing that normal life would begin again shortly but at the same time we were both amazed that we had made it this far to be honest after the cloud at home that we had set off under in regards to Trevor’s Dads health.

So with nothing on the agenda we both decided that the best thig to do would be to take the van back, get rid of it then that was it, we would be Darwin bound for the rest of the day and Jonathan for one just wanted to get into the hotel and try and get some sleep, still feeling quite poorly.

We headed off back to the outskirts of the town, up by the airport. There is a serious amount of light industry up here and the metal sheds that fill the sides of the highway seem to go on and on. Maybe it’s because Darwin really is quite isolated from anywhere else in Australia? I would guess that it is the city that’s furthest away from anywhere else? Actually scrap that, that’s definitely Perth as Darwin has Brisbane, its only about a four day drive away LOL!

We filled the van back up with petrol then headed back to the depot that was still very much in chaos. There seemed to be customers everywhere but no one seemingly being served. We had parked the van at the end of a long returns van but no one seemed interested in serving us, there was no visible queue so we just hung around like everyone else hoping to attract the attention soon of the invisible staff.

What was good though was that we could see that some of our stuff that we had dropped off earlier this morning had already gone out again, ready to do another tour of Australia somewhere. There is something quite nice about knowing that.

Eventually impatience got the better of us and we asked one of the girls who was already serving someone else what we had to do to just drop a van off?

Her name was Sara and her answer was “Is it full with petrol? Did you crash? Is there any damage?”

We gave all the right answers and told her we had taken out the full cover anyway so she just took the key sand that was that…. goodbye van.

It all felt a bit wrong just handing over the keys so we did go back again just to check she was sure that she didn’t wat to check it over but with so many other customers all trying to get her attention she assured us that all was fine and told us to go, so we did.

Now we really were in the middle of an industrial estate and we had not ordered a taxi. We had seen bus stops on the main road so figured that we would just catch a bus into Darwin and take it from there. What we had forgotten was that it was actually a bank holiday here today (and in the UK) so after waiting for a bus for a good twenty minutes we started to walk. We walked about four bus stops along before we figured that the bus should be due based on the timetable so we sat and waited.

When the bus eventually arrived it was packed, standing room only but at $3 a ride it was damn site cheaper than a taxi.

We got into Darwin and Jonathan was really struggling now. He’d had a really bad headache all day and just felt ill but we were still hours away from check in time at the hotel. He had no appetite either for food but was really thirsty so we found a juice shop and got a drink. To be honest this juice concoction full of all good natural flavours was more like a meal so it was a win all round but Trev still had the nibbles so to kill more time we ended up going to Nando’s for a meal for one for Trev whilst I sat and watched with a bottle of water.

It was time to chance our arm a bit and see if the hotel would let us check in a little bit earlier, he was by now so tired and miserable with it.

Luckily a room was ready, so we checked into room 209 with a small balcony and a view out to sea (although you can’t see much of it due to all the trees in the park in front of the coast).

We drew the curtains, Jonathan got in under the duvet and stayed there for a good few hours. The bed was no more comfortable than we had been in the van but the pillows were magical!

Trev went down to the hotels swimming pool with his iPad. He was in and out of what he told me was a rather cool pool but he did lay out in the sun and watched more Death in Paradise as well.

After a few hours Jonathan was feeling a little better, knowing that if he stayed in bed any longer he wouldn’t sleep tonight so it was time to get ready and at least go for a walk and see where it took us. We walked through the park opposite and took some steep never ending steps down to the shoreline. That took us around a deckchair cinema and then past a world war two oil tunnel. The tunnel had been built to protect oil supplies from the bombing Japanese forces. Darwin had been hit quite badly during the war and the Japanese had specifically been targeting the oil tanks sat out on the port. To solve the problem, the Australian Government got prisoners of war to dig huge long tunnels into the landscape around Darwin that would act as storage devices for the oil, out of sight from the enemy. It turned out that in the end the tunnels were never used but they are now open to the public to visit and are a real piece of history.

We ended up going for dinner in an Irish Bar back down at the Waterfront complex where we had been yesterday. It was a lot quieter now that was for sure but still busy enough.

All Jonathan felt he could stomach was the plainest food on the menu and when he saw mash and vegetables that was me sold, his dinner tonight pork chop with apple sauce with mash and veg with Trevor opting for Sausage, mash and peas.

We didn’t stay out that long, Trev knew that Jonathan was not himself and was still feeling like I needed his bed so we walked back to the hotel and called it a night. It wasn’t straight to bed, yes we watched our iPad’s once again (predictable I know) but then it was lights out before 22:00!

Jonathan just wanted to feel himself again, needing to sleep this off and be well tomorrow.