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I arrived at Sydney airport last night and headed to the lounge bar to top up the Dutch courage before boarding the 4hr 40min flight to Darwin where I will be meeting up with my buddy evelin for a 10 day tour of the outback with Wayoutback Safaris.
Many white wines consumed on the plane, watched most of the hobbit on an ipad - awesome idea. I was fairly drunk by the time we landed around 0130 - 0200hrs. It was a million degrees when I stepped off the plane, it felt like I was in Bali, the humidity was intense.
I had pre-booked a shuttle to Melaleuca on Mitchell hostel in the centre of Darwin - easy to find. I meet Jodie from Bristol on the shuttle and we head to the closest bar which is still open (love Darwin) after check in. I had a great time talking with Jodie - one of the coolest chicks around, pity she was leaving in the morning so we had no more time to catch up, but we will one day :) At around 0400hrs I think I fell into a bed somewhere.
The hostel is very noisy and a bit grotty; quite the party place. Shower rooms don't have any ventilation, so the humidity and mould in there is delightful. you have a shower, but can't dry yourself off because it is just too humid. Trying to get your knickers on while you are wet is not pretty - ick. In a 4 bed female dorm, the air conditioning sounded like it was going to take off, and the only other relief from the heat and humidity is a tiny old rotating fan, which may as well have not been on. The mattresses have a plastic sheet over the top, I guess to protect from the damp, but its pretty horrible trying to sleep, even with a sheet over the top. though after last nights drinking efforts, I could have slept anywhere.
Hom Cafe on Mitchell St - right across the road from hostel - is doing a full English veggie breakfast. I cannot say no to that with my hangover this morning! Delicious! Think I went back to hostel and slept or tried to on the noisy plastic mattress protectors - until Evelin arrived around 1500-1600hrs. I haven't seen Evs since London in 2011! She came out to Australia to work, and she has been living and working in the outback ever since. It was great to catch up finally! Frozen margaritas and frozen midori cocktails (yum!) with Evs, because it is too hot for anything else!!!! Let the drinking begin at Wisdom Bar and Cafe next door to hostel!!!! We grabbed a picnic lunch from Coles (Evelin had to spend hours in there, first shop she had seen in months after living in the outback!) With all the good things, cheese and dips etc., and a bottle of vodka and 2 ltr soft drink mixers and headed down to the water for sunset. Classy ladies drinking straight out of the bottles like that! Amazing sunset colours! Back to the Wisdom Bar for more frozen cocktails. I'm pretty sure we ended up at Shenanigans Irish Bar on Mitchell St, where we met some random guy who started buying us drinks. He then convinced us to head to somewhere like the Fannie Bay yacht club or something, for karaoke. So we jumped in a cab and landed in a fairly busy bar and proceeded to scream into microphones and belt out some Abba, meanwhile getting absolutely plastered. Jessica Maubouy's mum was there and took out the competition, but I say it was rigged! After way too many cocktails, we headed back to the hostel where we both slept like logs, even in that hot sweaty room with plastic under covers on the mattress! Gross!
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