Saturday
15th June
Well, for starters, we love
Nhulunbuy! We have met with nothing but
kindness, smiles, beauty. It is a lovely
little town, population approx. 4,000 and it is all GO. There is fishing, motocross, a speedway, a
beautiful swimming pool, barefoot bowls at the club, where they have provided a
most splendid playground for little ones.
We have been invited to Friday drinks at the Surf Club, Monday Quiz
Night at the Arnhem Club, and we have really only been in town for a few hours…
Our first encounter was with a small and
very dead flying fish which had landed on the back steps in the middle of the
night. No we did not have him for
breakfast…
Once again everyone is strangely and
extremely proud of their ferocious wild life.
We had only just pulled the dinghy onto the beach outside the Gove Yacht
Club when some nice young Quarantine officers pointed out the very spot, about
100 metres from 2XS, where the French deck hand had his head chomped by a –
fortunately small and inefficient – crocodile when he unwisely decided to swim
out to his dinghy in the dark on Anzac Day this year. They told us this story with great pride and
gusto! Everyone we met had either seen a
croc or had heard a suspicious rustling in the undergrowth, and everyone has
seen their tracks in the sand. The
crocodiles Rule The School! Nobody goes
swimming at all. There is, as I said, a
surf club, with a tower and a life guard but not many people are game to go
out, not matter how keenly the lifeguard surveys the beach. This beach, by the way, is very lovely and
very tempting, but…NO!
When we were looking at the beach we met
a nice bloke, newly arrived in Nhulunbuy.
He is working as a remote area nurse and is enjoying it so far. Except…he had just been for a peaceful Nature
Walk along the lagoon and he said it was not in the least relaxing because he
was suddenly aware of danger lurking all around him. Unmistakable croc tracks and unnerving
rustling in the undergrowth…
We had taken our faithful bikes in to
shore and off we went, whizzing along the 15 kilometer bike track to the main
town centre. It was a lovely track,
mostly through open bushland, all very pretty and peaceful, and yes, relaxing. We were surprised to get into town so
quickly, and to find it all so prosperous, green, leafy, with beautiful
amenities. And why oh why did I
crash?? The path was flat and straight
with a grassy verge. Nothing to bump
into, nothing to avoid, nothing to make me swerve. The only thing which distracted my attention
was…
Yes, unusual power poles! I remember looking at them, going lalalala in
my head and thinking, gollygosh, must take a photo, never seen poles like that,
everyone will be FASCINATED. And then
there I was flat on the ground yet again – ouchy ouch. Pete took a photo of me, smiling quite
happily. He thought it would be a good
idea to whip out the camera; otherwise I might have burst into tears. Nothing like a camera to make one smile, no
matter what!
I am very lucky, really. No broken bones! That would have been a bit of a disaster…Pete
would have had to send me home and who would have furled the sail and wound the
winches, and made sure there was a steady supply of XXX Gold in the fridge?? I
have a wrenched arm, two wrenched thumbs, a huge big fat black-and-blue knee, a
slightly fat lip, and I am just a bit wobbly.
Maybe I can blame it all on seasickness?? Pete says, Aren’t you fortunate? Many
people pay a fortune to have a detox; you have had one for free! I am going to go to bed soon, full of
painkillers and anti-inflammatories.
Valley of the Dolls!! Not quite V
of the D; my drugs are not being washed down with alcohol because the very
thought of alcohol makes me feel totally ill – detox time, yes Pete!!
Distances between this and that in this
area are quite big so we set out on a quest to get a hire car. We now have a lovely big silver Camry. Colby from Kansas Hire came and collected us
from our lovely lunchtime Walkabout Resort and took us miles and miles into the
industrial area to get this car – we would have been totally bemused and lost,
had we tried to ride our bikes there.
Such a nice bloke, nothing too much trouble. I am very happy to have the car, with our
bikes happily secured in the boot so we can ride back to the yacht club once we
have returned the car.
We had a bit of a recce and then went to
the Arnhem Club for restorative XXX for Pete and water for Marguerite Detox
Queen. One of our missions in Nhulunbuy
had been to track down a family connection of Pete’s, Hannah Wood, his brother-in-law
Chris’s niece. She is working as a
nurse, at the local hospital. We did a bit
of detective work and got through to her boyfriend Gaz at about 5pm. At 6 in they came, beautiful Hannah
and lovely Gaz,
wreathed in smiles. So lovely to see them. We are going to take them out on the boat at lunchtime
tomorrow. In the morning we are taking Mercedes
and Carsten, from Yacht Forty-Two for a bit of a jaunt, and then in the late
afternoon our friend Andew Miedecke is flying in with his friend Max to spend a
couple of nights on 2XS.
It is all, as I said, GO, in Arnhem
Land!
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