Darwin

Darwin was the seed that started this whole trip... Stu had told us what a good time he had at the footy last year so we decided to go. The original plan was to go to the game in Brisbane last weekend and then to Darwin for this weekend, but that fell through, along with a number of people who were going to join us.

After a 6am flight on Friday morning, we made it to Darwin around lunch time. When we got to the holstel we made the discovery that I had accidentally booked our accommodation for July instead of June, so we ended up in a dorm instead of a double, oops. We spent the afternoon wandering around the waterfront area before cooking ourselves a meal at the hostel, and hitting the town with Stu and his sister Kate for some drinks.

On Saturday morning we walked up to Parap to wander around the maket, and then up along Mindil beach to meet Stu where he was staying in Cullen Bay. We spent the afternoon staying hydrated at the bar before cramming onto a bus along with another dozen Footscray locals!

The atmosphere at the footy was great and it was nice being able to get beer in a can instead of the plastic cups you get at Telstra Dome.

Erin made friends with Barry Crocker and his keeper. Apparently they normally try and bar him from the ground, but as he has his own membership he's entitled to a seat.

It was a close game for the first three quarters, but the Doggies came through in the end. We farewelled Stu who had a middle of the night flight back to Melbourne and headed home to crash.

On Sunday morning we headed up to the Botanical Gardens for a wander around before hiking the whole way back across town to visit the seafood festival. Erin had some spiced salmon and I had some rather messy Sri Lankan style crab, very pleasant sitting on the breakwater with a band playing. For dinner we had pizza (with crocodile topping for me!) and then we went to the movies to kill some time before our rather absurd 3am flight.