Wednesday 6th August 2014
Well I am sitting here at my Mum and Dad's, watching a music video, and just spending quality time with them, we have chatted about almost everything we can think of, I have to say its so nice just having them all to myself, I honestly can not remember the last time this has happened, it was a very special few days.
Now to catch up on the missing weeks.
We finally made it safe and sound into Darwin, man what a journey getting in, with all the coral reefs, shallow spots, cargo ships, and many many yachts.
The next few days were just us catching up on sleep and resting.
But we knew we had to go ashore sooner or later, The Captains brother in laws, niece lives up here and we had a few parcels sent to her, she had rang earlier in the day and we arranged to meet up with her at the local yacht club here.
So off we go and made the long journey to shore, it actually takes us about ten minutes or so to get to shore, as Darwin has huge tides 6meters or so, we had to anchor quite far out, and are still only in about 2meters of water on the low tide.
We make it to shore fine, and have to get out in knee deep water and drag the dingy to the beach, we fiddled with a rope and anchor for some time, then eventually drag the dingy up to higher ground, I walk up to the yacht club while The Captain is still fiddling with The dingy and spot a tap, am busy washing my feet when I look up and there is a sign, warning about crocodiles, well I freak out, I had completely forgotten about them. It says not go into the water and not to go near the waters edge, great...we had just did both.
This is going to be a huge problem as we have to get the dingy in and out of the water, I made The Captain go ask a local bar man about them and he said he has only seen one in about 4 years, that's still one too many for my liking, but he said he would be more worried about the box jelly fish, another great now we have two things to be scared about.
The biggest problem we were actually having was dragging the dingy back out to the waters edge, I tell you when that tide goes out you are well and truly on dry land and the sand is like Velcro when your trying to drag the dingy, it sure is giving us a workout.
I managed to get out of one dragging as I had to get a tooth pulled, and was not allowed to lift anything heavy, so the poor Captain struggled until another guy came along and gave him a helping hand which was nice, and then The Captain in turn went over and helped him get his dingy to the water.
But I sure keep a good watch as we go back to the boat, not that I would know what to do if I did see a croc, I would most likely die of fright anyway.
So the day comes when I am to fly back down to Newcastle to catch up with the family and friends.
We had such a hard time organising it all, and it's so expensive you could fly to America cheaper than what it cost to fly down there, it took me 10 hours from the time we left the boat till I landed at Newcastle airport.
Now as you may know Darwin is hot, not just a little hot it's stinking hot, we are back sweating like crazy and the biggest problem I had was trying to find warmer clothes to take down with me as Newcastle is in the middle of winter, I actually left Darwin in 35° and hit Newcastle in 5° and man was I cold.
I had spend a good chunk of the previous day searching high and low for warm clothes on the boat, I eventually found my two warm jackets, one I brought in America and the other I have had for about 30 odd years, both favourites I might add.
The day I was leaving I asked The Captain to hang them out side to air out as they were a bit musty from being in a locker for so long.
About 5 minutes before we were leaving for me to catch the plane, I race up on deck to grab them and they are nowhere in sight, I call out to The Captain and ask if he brought them down, he yells out no, and the sinking feeling hits me, they are both gone, The Captain did not peg them on, yeah I was not a real happy chappy, the poor captain felt terrible too, but there was nothing we could do, the wind had picked up and blew them both overboard, I race down grab one of The Captains old jackets and just think how non stylish I will be while there is a few crocs out there tonight being very stylish in my lovely jackets.
We made it to the airport by the skin of our teeth and once again I was running to the plane, man it brought back all those memories from two years ago with the never ending racing when we were looking for our boat.
But it was all worth it my son Tim picked me up from the airport, and took me to my daughter Bek's house where I spent some lovely time catching up with her and Anthony, and we got some lovely news while I was down there they got engaged, I already knew in a roundabout way, which is a really long story, but Bek had no idea that Anthony was going to ask her, I tell you I had to spend three days with her and not say a word, it sure was hard, and even though Anthony already feels like part of the family anyway, it's so so nice that now it official, so Bek and Ant another great big congrats to you both, I am so happy for you and your ring is just gorgeous even if I did have to wait for two days to see it....haha
We also celebrated Tim's birthday on Tuesday which was great, my boy you have grown into such a lovely man and so tall, I think I must be shrinking.
Bek ran me around everywhere we sure had some busy days, I caught up with The Captains daughter Marian and that lovely granddaughter Isabelle, boy she is so cute, she is siting up now and laughing out loud, Bek and I could have stayed there all day, it's was such a nice catch up.
We visited a few old work mates, I got a new haircut, and I think Bek was a little bit glad to go back to work just to have a rest..haha
On the Wednesday I caught up with my best friend Lyn, and yes we both cried when we saw each other, Lyn has come to our rescue and downloaded a whole heap of new movies for us, thanks so much again Lyn, you have saved us from being bored to tears.
We had a lovely time catching up with many a good laughs.
My daughter Maddy and Jason come up from Sydney and took me up to mum and dads, we spent a whole day together, catching up on the lost 4 months oh and she now has red hair, Maddy does a lot of modelling and you never know what colour hair she will have when we left it was a pastel green almost mint green and now it's bright red almost orange, it does not matter what colour she dyes it it always looks good, but I have to say I was a real fan of the bright blue.... Hint hint Madd.
Now that's all up to date the rest I am sitting here writing on the plane back to Darwin and man do I hate airports, I had to walk a million miles to get to the gate that my plane was leaving from, I had already caught the first plane from Newcastle to Brisbane, with not too much of a hassle, only that the lady weighed my bags wrong and said I was 5 kilos over weight, if only she meant me...haha I could live with that.
So with Beks help we loaded everything we could think of into my hand bag and a back pack for me to carry on the plane.
This really does not make any sense to me as it's all going on the same plane anyway, the big problem was my carry on bags where so heavy and to lug them all over a damn airport was shocking.
I was not happy at the 2nd check in as I had brought some food back with me, some stuff we could not get in Darwin and this was with a different carrier and they would only allow one bag, it did not matter what the weight was, so I had to pay an extra $70 man I was livid, we sure better enjoy the food.
So am sitting at the gate ready to board, talking to The Captain on the phone and happen to look at my ticket what I thought was gate 18 was actually my seat number, I should of been at gate 46, and I had five minutes to find it, well I took off running, and of cause it was on the other side of the Airport, man why do they make everything so hard, but I made it puffing and panting and sweating like crazy.
I caught up with My Brother Darren, on Wednesday as well at Mum and Dads and on Thursday I spent the day with my oldest sister Robyn, we did a bit of shopping and then got some lunch and went for a huge bush walk around Barrington tops, man I am so unfit, and I sure did a lot of complaining especially when she wanted me to jog...haha
But it was a great day and we talked non stop.
On Friday we spent most of the day at my sister Robyn's cafe they own the local garage and she has turned the front of it into a little cafe, we all went for lunch, and my other two sisters Dianne and Myree came as well, we had many a laughs but all to soon it was time to go back, my sister Dianne took me back to my sister in law Renee and I caught up with her and the kids then back to Beks, we had an early night as they had to get me to the airport at 5.30am, yeah we were not real good getting up at 4am I tell you, but at least we were still talking when we had our teary farewell.
Man my eyes are filling up again, I just miss the kids so much, at least we will be back home again in four months for Christmas so it's not too far away.
And The Captains and my adventure starts again.
Well tomorrow is another day.