If you’ve missed it, this series starts here.
Saturday, 4 May 1996
20/288 Casuarina Drive
Nightcliff 0810
G’day folks,
How’s life down there in sunny Perth? We hope you are both well. We’re just spiffy. It’s “The Dry”!
There have been a number of unequivocal signs to verify this. Firstly, on Thursday evening 21 March our balcony was engulfed in a hovering swarm of dragon-flies which according to Margie is – a sure-fired sign that “The Dry” is on its way.
Then, I bumped into the first couple of enthusiastic, straw-hatted, sneaker wearing, camera toting, ‘visiting parent’ types, keenly climbing our apartment stairs, breathlessly chirping about how lucky we were to have such beautiful weather up here.
Then, trusty binoculars in hand, I spotted our resident frilled neck lizard – which had disappeared at the start of the wet (also lizard egg laying season) sunning itself on the trunk of our front lawn palm – as yet we have not determined whether it has brought any offspring back with it.
The gracefully soaring kites have also re-appeared, as have our sunsets. And finally, the Thursday evening Mindil Beach markets have re-commenced.
To cap off this abundance of evidence, the weather over the past month has been mostly dry. Apart from witnessing the spectacular thunder and lightning storms, there aint much to recommend the Wet – so good riddance!
This Wet was a daggy old wet, to boot. There was plenty of drizzle, but few tropical depressions to bring any relief from the horrid humidity.
But, enough of the weather. How are you both enjoying your new role running the second-hand shop? Have you acquired any bargains? Do you miss not going along to senior cits? Speaking of shops, how did you go selling your large chest of drawers? How’s your gardens growing? Anyway, I’ll stop giving you the third degree and get on with our news…
We’ve been in Darwin 18 months now, and over the past few weeks have been posturing about whether to take on another mortgage instead of renting. We‘ve looked through some houses for sale, but got disheartened at what was on offer.
We then checked out a few townhouses, which although more livable than the houses, were still incredibly expensive. Not as expensive as Lorraine Perry’s recent experience though!
She’s coming up to her first anniversary here, so her lease will be up for renewal. She noticed a duplex across the marina from her townhouse was being offered for rent so made an inquiry, they were asking $800 a week – unbelievable!
We’ll keep looking at possibilities, but we’re both still in two minds about buying. We do know that we both would like to return to Perth in the not too distant future. Greg will continue to apply for any suitable jobs that come up down there.
Speaking of Greg, he is as usual busy at work. This past week has been particularly hectic and long for him. He was responsible for the smooth running of a couple of graduation ceremonies held in the uni outdoor amphitheatre on Thursday and Friday nights.
Apart from the usual handful of recalcitrant academics who neglected to show up, the ceremonies for the most part went off without a hitch. As well as running around organising all and sundry, Greg was required to be dressed in an academic gown, draped with a gold trimmed hood and trencher on head, to lead the academic procession onto the stage – very impressive!
His working day ended well after 10.00pm on both nights. Ironically, Monday is a public holiday up here for May Day – which includes celebrating the introduction of the 8 hour working day!
During March and April, we were away from Darwin for a total of 19 days – one day longer than anticipated, thanks to Ansett. We touched – down at five other capital cities, some more than once. We stayed in three of them.
As has been our previous experience, it was not all smooth flying. But despite a couple of incidents our stays in Sydney, Hobart and Melbourne were all enjoyable. We particularly loved our 9 day holiday in Sydney, but that is due in part to the greater length of our stay, and us both being on hollies for the duration.
Whereas in Hobart and Melbourne we had several days only in each, and Greg had to work for the bulk of that time. Anyway, there are stories to tell about all places, so…
We were yearning for a complete contrast to Darwin, and as it turned out, we couldn’t have chosen a better place than Sydney to achieve this. It is a very happening city, and we thoroughly welcomed it all.
We of course did the full range of touristy stuff – strolling through The Rocks area, a tour of The Opera House, a day trip to the Blue Mountains, ferry trips from Circular Quay to Darling Harbour and to Manly beach, visits to museums, art galleries, the state library, the botanic gardens, Paddington and Paddy’s markets, China Town, Kings Cross, Phew!… and more.
We did stacks of walking as well as taking advantage of the very efficient bus service and monorail.
Our hotel on Oxford Street was perfectly located – Hyde Park a couple of hundred metres away to our left separating us from the city-proper, and in the opposite direction – Paddington with all its gorgeous $500,000.00 + townhouses, shops and galleries.
Oxford Street itself – well it’s hip to say the least. We arrived on the Tuesday after Mardi Gras, there were still oodles of people hanging out – so to speak. Oxford Street pulsates with people, traffic, horns, dance music, police and fire engine sirens. You don’t come here for peace and quiet!
It’s catered for by every kind of cheap to medium priced restaurant you could hope for. The air is thick with car fumes inter-mingled with a myriad of spices emanating from the Indian and Turkish and Spanish and Italian and Lebanese and so on restaurants that line the street. We ate most of our meals up and down this strip, which amongst others, included:-
∙ $9 Indian feasts for two (with red or white wine included),
∙ being the sole dinner patrons at an Italian restaurant which had just been robbed,
∙ almost free take-away Turkish pizzas – a new hit taste sensation for us.
Oxford Street is also the hub of the gay community. There are some very wild shops selling everything from sex aids to kitchen utensils to groovy clothing to furniture. What’s more, the place never sleeps. At 2.00am there was more traffic on the streets than Darwin sees at peak hour.
with its multi-mirror lined escalators, marble staircases, brass handles, grand pianos complete with pianists in tails, exquisite and majestic floral displays
Mind you, there’s 70,000 residents in Darwin compared to over 3.5 million in Sydney.
I just fell in love with Sydney – the hype, the shops, the smells, the people, the gorgeous old buildings – just the overall feel of the place, we liked very much.
I was surprised by the number and quality of historic buildings. Especially the Queen Victoria Building which has been renovated into a very exclusive shopping arcade.
The city is remarkably hilly, with interesting little streets running up and down topsy-tervy hills – just beckoning to be explored! Wheelchair users no doubt have a terrible time negotiating the old craggy paving.
We wanted big city shops and department stores, being deprived of them in Darwin. Well we got what we wanted.
One of the many, was beautiful world class David Jones – with its multi-mirror lined escalators, marble staircases, brass handles, grand pianos complete with pianists in tails, exquisite and majestic floral displays, and extremely polite service.
We did quite a bit of shopping.
We returned to Darwin to a rather musty smelling apartment. And a curiosity…Greg had rigged up a reticulation system to water our plants, it meant leaving the tap on at a slow drip for the 9 day period.
However, some plants looked like they could do with more of a drink, so Greg went to increase the revs, only to discover that the tap wasn’t on! Did someone turn it off? If so, how? Did we not turn it on? If so, how did these plants survive?
We don’t know the answer.
Anyway, as usually happens when we’re away, plants burst into bloom, and this time it was the bromeliaed’s turn to sprout forth two most spectacularly alien looking puce coloured flowers.
A month later we were back on a plane, this time heading for Hobart. It goes without saying that Hobart is cold – very cold.
We left Darwin at 33ºc to arrive in Hobart at 6ºc brrrrrrrrrr! In fact, the warmest it got whilst we were there was 12ºc.
We stayed at the Wrest Point Casino motel, which is the older part of the complex, pre-dating the casino. Our room had a huge wooden framed window giving a picture postcard view overlooking the Derwent River, framed on one side by the pretty suburb of Sandy Bay, and a cluster of large lush green fur trees on the other.
Greg’s meetings and conference took up most of his time. They were conveniently located at the uni though, a brisk 5 minute walk away. The small amount of touring done by us together was a local bus ride to the city and back.
The city is smaller than I had imagined, it’s quite a quaint little place. Although Wrest Point is only 5 minutes drive from the city along Sandy Bay Road, it takes much longer to get back by bus.
You hop on any bus heading south, and get a marvellous trip up-down-through all the southern suburbs before looping back to the casino. I did this trip several times.
I also did a marathon of walking, rugged up to the nines. When we were in Sydney, I ordered some walking boots in from an American company who make thin fitting shoes, they proved to be just perfect.
I wondered all over the place, admiring the charming gardens and colonial houses and “Gentleman’s” residences. There is a heap of “olde worldie-ness” about Hobart.
I complained to the overseer, who was more contemptuous than the rude mannered croupier
I went on historical walks, through historical parks, read historical memorials, ate lunches in historical buildings, climbed historical stairs, meandered through historical suburbs – I did historical stuff until I was stuffed and just about hysterical!
On the day we were due to leave Hobart for Melbourne, Greg finished his conference around 1.00pm, we didn’t have to get to the airport till 5.30. We planned to spend the arvo in the Casino. We’d won $30 the previous night on the roulette table, so were interested to see how we’d go again.
Since Melbourne Casino opened, Hobart Casino has fallen by the wayside somewhat. That arvo, there were only a couple of roulette tables and 3 blackjack tables operating. All up, there were about 30 people in there.
We sat down to a game of roulette with two other players. I placed a glass of water on the table to which the croupier took great exception, in a less than polite manner. We promptly cashed in our chips, and I complained to the overseer, who was more contemptuous than the rude mannered croupier.
I was furious at my treatment, I wanted to complain further, so went to reception to call the manager of the casino (Poor Greg!) Anyway, some guy in a suit turned up, I stated my case and made some suggestions, he agreed that I’d been treated shabbily, was continually apologetic, then offered to fix us up with transport to the airport as a way of showing that the hotel cared for its customers.
Well, we thought OK it would save us a $30 taxi fare – beauty. We killed time having lunch, walking along the boardwalk around the casino and marina, and playing the pokies.
When it came time to leave, we fronted up at reception and the concierge organised us and our luggage to the front entrance, where sat waiting the hotel’s sparkling white stretch limousine.
We were highly amused. The chauffer politely settled us into the commodious and plush back seat area. It’s about 25km to the airport. We were slightly perplexed at some of the curious, excited and even hysterical reactions by a range of bystanders en-route, at the mere sight of the limo – we just smiled and waived to them all!
Our flight to Melbourne was delayed an hour or so, but eventually we arrived at the Travelodge on St Kilda Rd. The Domain Interchange tram station is virtually at the front door, which proved to be extremely useful.
The trams were great, we used them regularly. They are superbly convenient and bar one time wasting experience, efficient as well.
We had the weekend together so tried to take full advantage of this time. We checked out a photography exhibition at The Melbourne Arts Centre. We trammed it to the city, and once again like Sydney, were impressed with the shops.
We went window shopping in the smart boutiques along Chapel Street. We went to the Meat Works – an upmarket arts & crafts market.
We had dinner at one of the hundreds of Italian restaurants on trendy Lygon Street – where waiters stand at the restaurant entrances beckoning and enticing passes-by into their establishments. It can be intimidating for the un-initiated!
We braved the rain on Sunday, which barely let up, and went to the St Kilda Beach Markets – after taking several hours to get there on a handful of trams and busses, due to some unforseen maintenance to the overhead tram wires.
We wondered around that pretty suburb, and spent several amusingly, nostalgic minutes in Luna Park.
The highlight of the weekend for me was, without a doubt, the Queen Victoria Markets. Greg was very keen to show me the fresh produce areas.
He knows I dream of living within close walking distance of such a place. And, what a fabulous place it is! The sheer volume of produce is mind boggling.
Outside there is aisle after aisle of superb specimens of every conceivable fruit and vegetable. But inside, just blew me away! There are rows and rows of freshly baked, platted, knotted, flattened, glazed, seeded, breads.
Store after store displaying piles of numerous varieties of mouth-watering cheeses, exotic antipasto’s and plump juicy olives. I could hardly contain myself, I felt completely frustrated, not being able to buy.
Anyway, there were even more stores of magnificent cuts of meats, and indeed whole animals – many stores hang whole skinned goats or lambs from ceiling hooks.
I’m sure these are strategically placed by the storeholder, so that if you’re not paying attention to their selection as you pass by you may well come to grief with the gruesome beasts, in an abrupt and unseemly manner – I know!
There’s a strangely endearing quality to the hubbub of competing hawkers bellowing out remarkably cheap deals – delicious rump steaks $1.99 a kg (in Darwin $13.99 a kg), mince $1 for 2kg lots, this is what I miss about not living in a major city – real choice.
We met up with Neil Perry on Monday night, he took us on a walking tour of the area he and Lorraine used to live in – Carlton, around Smith Street and Gertrude Street, (sound familiar Mum?) ending up on Brunswick Street where we ate a most enjoyable meal at his favourite cafe.
The rest of the touring was done alone by me. I strolled around the King’s Domain, and had an interesting visit to the Shrine of Remembrance, trammed in and out of the city, and spent a glorious ½ day getting lost in the Botanic Gardens.
If we had paid for our airfares ourselves, we would have flown back to Darwin from Melbourne, once Greg’s meetings were completed. However, Greg had used the ticket which the Uni bought last year for the Tassy conference that we dipped out on, and I was using the last of our free frequent flyer ‘reward’ flights.
Both tickets required we fly to and from the same city – Hobart in this case. So, back to Hobart we went. And this is where things didn’t go quite as smoothly as we would have liked.
Firstly, we got caught in traffic en-route to the airport, making us too late to enjoy a relaxed aperitif in the “Golden Wing” lounge before take-off. Then I had a heated altercation with the Ansett check-in bloke.
Then we had to run for the plane, which promptly got delayed and left us sitting on the tarmac for ever – well it felt like it! Then we arrived in Hobart to frosty almost snowing conditions, and no taxis.
We had to stand and freeze for well over ½ an hour. Do I sound impressed?
Then things started to improve. We stayed, this time on the northern side of the city in a very charming old hotel which had once been a colonial manor house. As you would expect of a manor house it had its fair share of ‘bulbous’ chandeliers, leadlight windows, Persian rugs, large gold-leaf framed period pics, open fireplaces, antique furniture, tapestry covered chairs – complete with the almost obligatory purring, pampered, fat, fury, cat, and heaps of highly polished rich coloured wood on the floors, half way up the walls, on the stairs, on the windows and on the doors.
Our plane was due to leave around 1pm the next day.
The next morning was very cold and raining heavily so we chose to hang around the hotel until we had to go to the airport. We enjoyed a hearty cooked breakfast in their decorous dining room, then spent the rest of the morning sitting in their lounge room on a large leather lounge, next to a crackling fire, watching a video, it was most civilised.
And then, the trouble began once again.
We arrived at the airport raring to go, only to learn that the plane scheduled for our flight had developed mechanical problems – we were stranded for five hours! Of course this meant, we would also miss our connecting flight to Darwin.
Ansett did offer us lunch at a local hotel but having had a large brekkie we opted to sit around and wait in the airport guest lounge. Because Greg’s a member of the Golden Wing Club and Frequent Flyer and all that jazz, the local Ansett manager looked after us fairly well – ensured there was plenty of stuff to eat and drink in the lounge, and upgraded our ticket (which was now to Melbourne for the night) to first class.
And, we like first class! Even though the flight is a mere 50 minutes, we were plied with freshly squeezed OJ in a real glass, spirits of our choice, quality nibblies, warmed refresher towels, sandwiches and rolls with smoked salmon and that sort of stuff, quiches, spring rolls, chocolates, percolated coffee…We even got crisply starched white linen table cloths on our tray tables, – deary me!
Anyway, we stayed the night at the Melbourne Airport Travelodge compliments of Ansett. Apart from a bit of a kafuffle about whether we were entitled to room service or not, and having to wash and then dry with their hairdryer some clean undies, and put up with an air-conditioning duct that sounded like we were sleeping with an idling bus in our room, the night and the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful.
We returned to Darwin via Adelaide, and are for the moment, cured of the travel bug.
Well, that is just about our complete life story for now. We hope you have a restful Mother’s Day, Mum. G’day to the rest of the family. Take care.
lots of love
Tren & Greg
XXOOXX
ps We have a new telephone number…( 08 ) 89 854591