Before the official start of Christmas, I slipped back to my pre-Australia life. When we arrived in Darwin, I vowed to live life at a pace that my brain could handle. The months leading up to the international move were chaotic to say the least. It was time to slow down.
Just before Christmas the amount of tasks at hand finally got to me and once again I took pen to paper to do up a “To Do” list. I was trying so hard to avoid what ended up being the inevitable. One list was created and like a chocoholic after one little taste, I couldn’t help myself. Other lists followed, some with priority codes – asterisks, circles, numbers. There was banking – domestic wires, international wires; Christmas shopping; grocery shopping; finding a vehicle; buying a vehicle; finding and buying a second vehicle; figuring out how to get the pets from quarantine (in Sydney) to Darwin; looking at more houses, neighborhoods; emails to schools; finding out how to prepare for a cyclone; finding out where to get emergency supplies;…. You all know how it goes. My poor little brain couldn’t hold it all in there, especially in the right order of priority. So I digressed. And my brain hurt, even with all the lists and caffeine. We were not meant to live our lives at this pace.
After Christmas life calmed back down, thankfully. By the end of the year we had bought two vehicles – a Toyota Landcruiser Prado (SUV) for our family and a Honda Civic sedan for Paul to commute to work. Both have manual transmissions and get good gas mileage. Surprisingly, the pattern for manual shifting is not different over here! You have to do it with your left hand, of course. And our Prado is a 6 speed so the reverse is actually to the left of first gear (which actually makes more sense – you usually go to first gear after you back up). Other than that, it’s the same. Driving a big diesel standard SUV around the city with three little kids by myself is a little more challenging. The almost constant shifting makes it difficult to help them or do interference. It will just keep getting easier, though, as the kids get older and as I (hopefully!) progress beyond struggling driver status.
We really enjoyed slowing down over the holidays. Paul took almost the whole week off and we took a couple days to just go see the sights with the kids. Santa brought us tickets to Crocodile Cove, Crocodile Park and Zoo and the Wave Lagoon. We haven’t yet been to the last one, but the other two were a hoot. Because we are locals now, we got to upgrade to annual passes at both places, which is just awesome. We can learn a little more about all the creatures each time we go. With this intense heat, it is definitely easier to make shorter, more frequent visits.
Crocodile Cove is downtown Darwin and has a mix of crocs and reptiles. We fed the smaller crocs (1 and 2 meters long) with a fishing pole. Boy can they get out of the water! They initially look cute, but when you see how hungry and strong they are, you quickly realize that they have already become predators and we are food. We were warned before we entered the area to keep whatever appendages we wanted to stay attached away from the fence. When Johanna took her fishing pole to feed the “little” guys, the string was not taught so the food wasn’t going low enough for the crocs to jump to it. I reached up to help fix the string on the pole, barely putting my hand beyond the fence and they went crazy jumping after me. Yikes! Those guides meant what they said!
As a side note, I had previously read that Australians are famous for understating things. For example, if something is 200+ miles away, it is quite in their character to say something to the effect… “Yeah, no worries. Just get on this highway and you’ll see it on your right, just down the road.” So…if an Australian emphasizes that I should NOT do something, I need to listen up like I have never listened before.
Back to the Croc Park…We then saw the bigger crocs (5 meters long) being fed by the experts. Now they are scary. You would have to pay me a lot to do that job. The feeder goes into the croc’s tank area and stands on the dry, concrete section with a long pole. He puts the food down by the croc’s mouth until he comes out of the water a little to get it. There is another person in there, presumably to help the poor bloke out should he/she get in trouble. I wouldn’t be convinced. Maybe if my kids were starving and that was the only job left on the planet, maybe I would consider it. I know, never say never, but I think it might be safe to in this case.
Croc Cove has a bunch of crocs of all ages. They even has the famous movie star croc there - the one that was in Crocodile Dundee. He’s big. They also have a dunk tank you can get in and get lowered down in the water, close to a couple of the big crocs. We haven't done that yet. The kids did get to hold a baby croc. He was probably 2 feet long and had his mouth secured so he couldn’t bite. He just lay in their arms. It was cool to feel his very soft skin.
Next it was on to the turtles, lizards, snakes and the like. It seemed that all the snakes were very poisonous and all lived around Darwin. I took pictures and took note. No tall grass for us, thank you.
Crocodile Park and Zoo was also impressive. It was great that they have a variety of wildlife, including kangaroos, wallabies, monkeys, lions, etc. And of course lots of crocodiles. There is a museum there as well so lots of learning to do. They breed crocodiles and sell the meat there. Of course we had to take some home to try. We got a bbq assortment pack. More on that later…
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