WEATHER: Hot and humid 32C
HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Seeing some great school friends
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Emotions are in over drive
WORD OF THE DAY: Reunion
There is no Wi-Fi at the hotel where I am staying, but they have the ADSL cords that you can use. On the few occasions that I have had to use them I find that they just don’t bloody work. So all my internetting is getting done on my Blackberry for my time here in Darwin. It probably isn’t a bad thing as it is a less of a distraction as I write my blogs each night and just try and catch up on a few entries that I have been wanting to get done the last week. It is difficult with 2 little people in the house in Brisbane, which I am totally not complaining about, as I want to spend as much time as I can with all the Elkins as I can.
I had booked the car hire in for a 10am pick-up this morning. I didn’t have to be in town till 11.30am and like anything in Darwin it really doesn’t take too long to get from one end of town to the other so I planned on just coasting around driving past some old haunts as I made my way into the city. The walk back to the airport terminal took only 8 minutes and I was in the car and out of the airport by 10.20am. I was thinking about my travel week this week coming from the east coast of Australia, Brisbane-travelling to the top of Australia, Darwin-then making my way to the bottom of Australia, Melbourne-all I was missing was a trip to the west to complete a north, east, south and west of this great country. Well when I approached the car rental it actually had WA plates, I kid you not….. Now isn’t that a little freaky and it completes the compass, even if I am not actually stepping foot into the state of WA.
My drive into town took me past my mum’s old unit in Ryland Road, through Coconut Grove, past the Bagot Community, through The Narrows, Stuart Park and into town. Not much has really changed. There are a few more buildings, some construction of apartments in town but some businesses have stayed the same and in the same spot for over 20 years!!! This is great to see that they have weathered the storm over time and are still trading. Some of them are Territory icons and some of them I used to visit when I lived here. I am sad to report my pizza shop is now gone, they did the best Margarita pizza’s I have ever eaten and mum and I used to have one every Sunday night for years. I stopped along the Esplanade and then after asking a lady about paying for parking, which doesn’t apply on Sunday’s, I found a park at the top of the Smith Street Mall and headed into the mall. I was a little early so stopped into a few souvenir shops to buy a post card to send to Zeme and it dawned on me that I have artwork, souvenir and statues from all over the world and I have nothing from Australia. So I now went looking for something ‘Australian’ I could take with me to Ethiopia and I found it in the form of some aboriginal artwork painted on a wooden cylinder. It actually is a beautiful piece of art and I when I look at in Addis I will think of Australia and of the NT and my mum.
The Smith Street Mall looked exactly like I remembered. Maybe a few shop changes and a few upgrades, but it was the same. I was surprised to see so many people around as usually on Sundays it used to be quite dead, but not today. I guess it is the dry season and a busy time for the Territory as its weather is ‘supposed’ to be better this time of year. I found the restaurant fine and had just got seated when Jo text me telling me she was lost. It is funny that people who live in a city, and have their own routines, also don’t know where things are, as they change and move with the times. Luckily we had our own reference points from 20 years ago and I told her that the place was across from the old Coles on Mitchell Street. We used old references during lunch, I guess some things don’t die at all and we all knew where we were talking about. Jo arrived and then 15 minutes later Lisa arrived. They both look great and to my eyes haven’t changed much in the 22 years since we were at school together. I did organize a 10 year reunion in 2001 when we got 95% of the students to a dinner in Darwin and maybe a few catch up in the ensuing 10 years but it was great to see them both today and have a gossip session and a laugh over our 2.5 hour lunch. It was a shame I didn’t think of it earlier and arranged to have met a whole bunch of people for a casual lunch while I was here.
So with our farewells and promises to keep in touch I headed to good old Casuarina to have a quick poke around the shops before they closed at 3pm. I am currently on the hunt for a Lonely Planet of Ethiopia and they also have an Ethiopian Phrasebook in their book collection I saw online, so I am hoping I will find that in the next few weeks to take with me. I’m thinking I will have a bucklies chance of getting them without having to special order them, but I will check every book shop as I see them to see if they have copies. These are probably the only 2 ‘proper’ books I will take with me as I have my Kindle now and I have been downloading books as people recommend them and have around 12 books loaded and ready to read. I’m not really getting into my Kindle yet as I want to make the most of ‘real’ books while I can as I think nothing beats an old fashioned paperback in your hands. My Kindle is out of necessity as English books in Ethiopia can be bought but are quite expensive. So I wandered around Casuarina for an hour, in and out of shops and book shops and it is funny I am looking at people just waiting to see someone I recognize, but I think after 20 years those days are gone and a new generation has moved in, but I did see Andrea from school and had a small chat with her before heading on.
I am also on the lookout for tops for Africa. I found that the tops I had on my Odyssey, though great, I felt a little uncomfortable in Ethiopia with them either being a little too low cut or body hugging for my liking. I am lucky that the current trends for tops are the loose flowing t-shirts and I have managed to buy a bunch over the last few weeks. I thought while I was here I would have a look, being a tropical climate there may be more variety here than in the Brisbane shops with winter still knocking on our doors and I was right. I found a bevy of shirts from K-Mart here that would do the trick for me in Africa. They all fit, I think look okay and they were all on sale from 10AUD and down. Does it get any better than that? So I shopped up and bought a box of chocolates and a drink to take with me to my brother’s place tonight. All the shops were closing at this point being a Sunday, so I made my way back to the resort for an hour or so to freshen up before my drive out to Girraween.
I also managed to get a call into Zeme this afternoon. It is always great to hear his voice and he always knows how many day we have till we are reunited. Man I miss him so much and just need to hang in there for the 49 days that we have left. Considering we were counting from 165ish, 49 should be a walk in the park. Should be……..
I drove out to see my little brother and his new family this afternoon. My Dad remarried 32 years ago to my beautiful step-mother Chris and after mum died, my dad was in Darwin at the time, and after 15 years we spoke again for the first time. I then re-met my brother John when I was last here. The last time I had seen him was when he was 8 years old, so both John and Paul have kept in contact VIA Facebook over the years. Paulie got married last year, but I was unable to attend the wedding as I was away on my Odyssey and I remember this day quite clearly, I was in St Petersburg-Russia, when they sent me a message telling me that I was going to be an Aunty!!! Being an only child I NEVER thought that I would become an Aunty via a blood relation….. I was so excited and so happy for my brother and his new wife and boy it felt good. Little Noah was born and then I received a message from my sister-in-law when I was in Santa Elena-Venezuela, asking me my dates for my visit to Darwin as they were going to try and have Noah’s Baptism while I was there to have us all together, I was so touched by this gesture from some-one I hadn’t even met yet and honestly it put a tear in my eye. As it worked out we couldn’t get dates that would suit everyone and I was unable to attend the Baptism that is going to be next weekend. In amongst all this my Dad and Chris were driving the caravan from Townsville and they left a few days earlier to be able to arrive before I was due to leave so that I could see them before I left. It is strange to say, but with mum passing away I lost my ‘family’ that I had ever known but on the turn side I have now been reunited with my ‘other’ family and it gives me a nice feeling that I still have some blood relatives out there when I never thought I would and that I didn’t think I cared, but after re-establishing contact with them again it has made me realize just how lucky I am now to have them back in my life. They are all amazing people and they opened their arms, time and hearts to me and for this I am eternally grateful. No-one will ever take the place of my mum, but family is family and I like it.
Paulie and Karla live on a block around 35 minutes from town. I remember driving this far in the ‘old’ days was like a mission, it was such a ‘long’ way and back in the 90’s there wasn’t as much infrastructure as there is now. Mum and I used to live out here (a very long long time ago) till we moved into the city and then we would come back and visit every Sunday. Mum would let me sit on her lap and help drive on the dirt road till we got back to the Stuart Highway and one birthday we drove out with a birthday cake and didn’t realize till we got to the property that Mum had left the cake on the roof of the car and was probably somewhere splattered along the highway somewhere. It is funny now, but I was a devastated 7 year old back then……..
I was prepared for the drive and I bought my IPod and the cord where I could connect it into the car stereo, so with my tunes plugged in, a box of chocolates, a drink and amazing directions from Karla I hit the Stuart Highway and for the gang waiting for me. It didn’t dawn on me till after I arrived that I didn’t have a gift for Noah. Gee what a BAD Aunty I am…. Bad bad bad…. I will make a point of sending something when I get back to Brisbane. Karla was exact in her directions and I didn’t get lost once when I arrived at 6.30pm. Dad and Chris had arrived a few hours before me and it was a weird and unusual feeling to have my Dad open the gate for me to drive in, my Dad. I am lucky that Karla, Paulie, Chris and dad are all huggers and it was nice to be embraced by family and so readily accepted. My nephew Noah was cute as a button and looked exactly like his dad did when he was a baby. A splitting image. I asked Karla if she gets sick of people telling her that….to which she shrugged and smiled, which I took as a yes. I had a great evening with the ‘McAnally’s” and it is so cool to say that my sister-in-law is amazing and wonderful with Noah, my stepmother Chris has always been an amazing person, by brother (yes it still sounds foreign to my ears) my BROTHER Paulie and of course my Dad are also in the amazing department. I left their place a little after 11pm for the night drive back to ‘town’ with promises to keep in touch with Karla and Paulie and that I would be seeing Dad and Chris for dinner at my older brother’s place tomorrow night.
It was a little scary driving back with no street lights, I can’t remember the last time I even drove at night time, seriously, besides a handful of times since I have been back it would have been over 16 months and it was a little disconcerting. Tomorrow is going to be an emotional day as I make the pilgrimage to the cemetery to pay my respects to mum and have a little chin wag with her. I am not sure when the next time I will be here in Darwin, so it makes it that much more of a significant visit.
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