Thurs 21st: Last day in Darwin
We were just delighted to discover that BOTH of us were well. A good omen for the day. So into our rental and down the road to Doctors Gulley. This was the site of the Quantas Airways hangars in the 1930s.. That was the good news; the bad news was that we had just missed Aqua scene,  a fish sanctuary where hundreds of friendly local wild fish swim in on high tide in search of a gratuitous meal of fresh bread. I got in alright but was just in time to be shown out. Silly me.
Then off we went on the 50 km drive along Stuart Highway ( which goes straight through to Adelaide -taking in Alice Springs on the way) to the Territory Wildlife Park which is a 400 hectare conservation area opened by the Northern Territory Government.
En route we stumbled across a Termite Park which was actually closed but we managed to get up close to some of the pinnacles which towered over Peter's head and of course go far into the ground.  They feel like Terracotta to touch.
Shortly after we drove into the Park and were greeted by a wildlife host who sat down with us and a map to plan our day for us. I told him of my specific interest because of my grand-daughter and he was particularly helpful. The park has a hop-on-hop-off train which circuits every half hour, so we did that trip first, then lunch, then a serious tour. There are 11 unique areas all with superb woodland walks linking them. We managed only half of them in the afternoon. Our original host had warned us of snakes on the paths which caused Peter to walk slowly behind me. The reverse of our normal walking. By the time we emerged the Park was closing but had given me the best day of my holiday.
We came home in time to go out to the Mindi Beach Sunset Markets which are held on Thursdays and Sundays of the dry season. Well, as if I hadn'T had a perfect day already, there I was facing the best evening of my holiday. The whole of Darwin gathers in this tranquil balmy environment ( with a full moon thrown in) with a limitless range of ethnic foods (I did prawn kebabs on Thai vegetable fried rice), to the accompaniment of wonderful music (my favourite was the guy with 5 interlinked dijrridoos each with its own mike) and more craft stalls than even I could examine. And here I was thinking I would have to make do with the Casuarina Mall. I came home with a bulging back-pack. My next challenge will be packing it all for the next step of our journey to Brisbane.