(2015/03/14-15) … the last time we crawled out of our tents and the last time we did our common breakfast. The good thing, it was the first time we didn’t had to rise down our tents, because Hardy wanted to inspect and clean them, so they could be stored and ready for the next years tour from Darwin to Melbourne. In the next days most of us are flying home and had booked accommodations for themselves in Hotels. Tobi and myself decided due to our budget, to stay in a Hostel. While having breakfast we got information out of the newspaper that Dane was now found, not far away from his car. Second info for toady was, within the next days bad weather will come with heavy rain.
Our goodbye tour through Darwin went through Coolangatta Beach/Night Cliff. We could saw already the bad weather coming and our last pictures for Darwin were more grey then colourful. From East Point we got a good view to the arm of island where Downtown is located, followed by an short visit at Stokes Hill Wharf. After the shopping and lunch break in Downtown we continued our tour in the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (free admission; aboriginal art, strange modern art, insects, wildlife, ships of immigrants..) . Most impressive was the size of Sweetheart, a giant crocodile which was caught after it attacked small boats. Also very interesting was the exhibition of the cyclone Tracy who destroyed Darwin in 1974.
The last stop for today, after we cleaned the bikes, was a storage depot where the bikes will be safe till next years tour. In total i drove 6007km with this bike, others a bit more because i did some sights with the Toyota Landcruiser. Finally we ended the day together with some beer and dinner in a pub and said goodbye to each other.
As by the weather forecast predicted, the bad weather hits us in the morning but decreased to noon. We both got wet, but this rain was not cold, it was a bit enjoyable with about 24 degrees. More enjoyable was lunch, Nandos! The last time i ate at Nandos was in South Africa on my trip with my sister Mephy. Very sad that we don’t have Nandos in Germany. Wasting a bit time with lunch succeeded and the weather became better again and the rain had stopped. What else todo in Darwin? There wasn’t much for us to see, within our budget, and our plane from Darwin to Brisbane will leave very late (16.03, 1:10am). On a second walk around the city we saw some of the buildings, which was described in the museum. Thinking on our budget we choose the public bus to get to the airport. 3 Dollars? Not bad 🙂 The journey took about 2,5 hours to get there, including waiting about an hour at the Casuarina Bus Interchange. Having free WiFi in the bus and that they were playing a radio station was nice and entertaining. Finally we arrived still early enough at the airport, but saved $18 for not taking the airport shuttle or taxi. The bad thing about flying with cheap airlines is, that their checkin counter opens 2hours before departure. Waiting at a cafe, writing, having a snack and some nice talks shorten the waiting very good. Both planes departures very late and arrive even very early, within 15 minutes difference to each, in Brisbane…