MONDAY 14 FEBRUARY     DARWIN

After breakfast “in”, we drove back to Star City and the Casino, through rain.

Being a Monday, we were due to receive a free recharge on our Action Cards: $20 worth of poker machine credits, vouchers for $5 Keno games and a free drink. Provided one stuck to the limits of the freebies, this was worth having. It provided us with something to do, as we were, to some extent, just filling in time now. My original plans had us spending last Thursday, Friday and most of Saturday on a trip out to Kakadu, so by now we’d done the Darwin based things that really appealed, that could be done in the increasingly wet weather.

We played the pokies, taking winnings as we went. When my “free” money ran out on the card, I had $17 cash. I’d had to put in a dollar of my own to start, and another dollar because John told me wrong information, so the actual profit was $15. John didn’t do quite as well, but still made money. Then we played Keno while we had our free drinks. John said I had to pay $5 to get the free $5 worth, so I did that, buying ten games. He was wrong, and I could have just had the free games. Anyway, I got back $7, so finished that with a profit too. Again, John didn’t do as well and just broke even. So we left Star City with profits.

I’d have spent time in the Aqua Bar there, just to watch the unicorn fish they had swimming around in the large fish tank. Loved them.

Went to the Nightcliff shops, where I mailed some postcards to grandchildren. Bought a couple of novels from a book exchange – reading for the train. Bought some lunch – a pasty and sausage roll for John,  savoury bread roll for me. Parked out by the little jetty there, to eat the food. The seas were really wild.

John wanted to drive out the Kakadu road, to see some more of the bush and country in the wet conditions. But we only got as far as  Palmerston when it became obvious that the rain and storms were getting worse, so we turned back.

On the way back, stopped at the fish wharf and bought a kilo of really large, cooked, tiger prawns, for tea, and half a dozen oysters as well to be a dinner appetizer for John.

Then, back to the unit. Sat out on the balcony watching the marina and the changing skies, until we were driven inside by rain squalls blowing in.

Not long after, we saw a light moving over the trees beyond the marina. It grew into the top lights of a  big ship. Quite surreal. Once it cleared the low hills, it was obvious that it was a really large cruise ship. We watched it “turn the corner” and disappear behind the buildings. The shipping channel here is really close to the shore. Unfortunately, it was too dark to take photos of the ship.

Our prawn dinner was lovely, with some salad.

Heavy rain came, with wind squalls, just as we finished tea. The Bureau of Meteorology for Darwin was hopeless, we decided. “Showers” had been forecast for today. There was a dinky little tropical low in the region. For the rest of the night we had heavy rain and wind.

Today’s grey and wet weather had, at least, made the temperature a bit lower – only 28 degrees top today, compared to the 31 degrees we’d been having each day previously.