Day seven landed us in the quiet city of Darwin. This was where the wedding in the beautiful movie “Top End Wedding” was supposed to take place.
I caught the entire downtown from the plane.
There wasn’t any roaring traffic outside our hotel.
We had the day on our own and went for a walk to the Timor Sea, only a few blocks away. It was Tuesday yet the streets were almost deserted. Just past the waterfront park I came across a wonderful shop:
It was 100% nonprofit. I fell in love with gold earrings of nw Australian spirit, and purchased them.
Outside the shop There was a beautiful white frangipani tree. Its fallen blossoms contrasted against the abstract pattern roots.
Evening tea was on the wharf accompanied by a colorful sunset complete with boats.
We had delicious barramundi.
The next morning after breakfast I got in the plane first for a short trip to Kununurra. Sitting up front next to the pilot I got a bird’s eye view of his frustration as we sat in queue on the tarmac.
An irritated pilot
“In 35 years of flying I’ve never had to wait on the tarmac this long,” he growled. He called flight control and politely asked,”what’s going on?”
They explain the cable that the military was using for to catch the landing jets while they practiced for air craft landing was stuck up. “No worries” the pilot told air control, resigned to his place. As we sat second in a line of small craft waiting take off we watched lots of fighter jets and a Hercules land.
We are third in line with more behind us
In the Co pilot seat
Finally after 63 minutes of Idling
We got clearance to take off.
I asked the pilot to explain the dials on the control panel.
The new Garmin had everything including Compass,altimeter, air speed and synthetic vision.
This side of the Garmin had the gps map which was duplicated on the iPad he had on the controls
These dials duplicated the Garmin
I told the pilot, ” That makes me feel safer if we fly through white again. I knew we were OK but my stomach didn’t.”
“Just don’t listen to your gut.”
” Easier said than done, my stomach has a mind of it’s own.”
We crossed over miles and miles of uninhabited land that was covered with water in the wet.
As we approached Kununarra we saw the dam and tropical fruit being grown because they had water.
We drove out to see the boab trees and the beautiful rock formations.
Dinner was watching the sunset at a the pump house which was the first pump house for the dam that made the town in the 1960s
Sunset off the deck of the pump house
Original pumps inside the restaurant
After a good nights rest we flew out to Broome the next morning flying over the Bungle Bungles a very unusual mountain range in the Purnululu National Park:
It was a three hour flight to our next stop in Broome flying over the Kimberley region North West Australia:
The brown line was our approximate flight path
We landed in Broome where we had lunch and the afternoon off. After dinner we went see “Top End Wedding ” at a very old open air theater. The setting was wonderful:
As we watched the actors discuss flying, a real jet roared into the night sky over our heads.
The story was set in Darwin and the Torres Strait where we had just visited.
The next morning I relaxed at the pool. In the afternoon we had a short tour of Broome and then went to cable beach for a beautiful sunset.
Visions from Two Continents. 