Day 10 Darwin visit with Jess

Day 10 Darwin - seeing Jess

We arranged to meet up with Jess later on today after she finished a long shift at the Darwin Hospital, so we could take her out for a special birthday dinner. Her birthday isn't until tomorrow but she has a very long shift then too. She took us to a restaurant called PeeWees at the Point on Alec Fong Lim Drive - or rather we picked her up from her unit and went there in our car.

Having a whole day to fill beforehand, earlier we had headed into the city to find a shopping centre. We firstly ended up at Fannie Bay where the beach looked so pretty that we just had to go down to it and explore. It also has some very large mansions on the shorefront as well as a manicured park, and was altogether rather lovely.

John posing at Fannie Bay

Barb also posing

Yep! It's gorgeous

The water was very clear too

From there we drove to Nightcliff. The shopping centre here was very small, so we just went to Woollies for a small grocery shop to replenish stocks. Surely there must be something bigger than this? Oh yes there is! We found it at Casuarina. A large newish complex with multistorey car park, cinemas etc. In this complex there were all the usual chain shops including Cue and Pumpkin Patch. John was pleased to find his tailor (Lowes) and even bought a couple of new pairs of shorts and trousers (Barb has failed totally to impart her sense of wonder at this marvel - clothes shopping is slightly less attractive than, oh, I don't know, the dentist without anaesthetic?). Barb found some cotton T-shirts too. It's so hot here .... cotton is definitely the go even in winter.

It was so lovely to be in the air conditioning. We returned to our camp to find the temperature in our closed up tent was well over 40.

Having a built in GPS in the car has been a godsend when navigating our way around Darwin. It let us down a bit when we were trying to find Jess' unit, it being located in a new development near the hospital. We drove down a street and Barb commented that someone had a silver Mini Cooper just like Jess. Of course it turned out it was her car .... and it was parked right outside her unit. We just need to get lost driving around the block a couple of times to be convinced.

Jess' unit with her car right outside

PeeWees turned out to be a very fine dining experience. The location was just gorgeous too, looking out across the bay as the sun was setting. Darwin does sunsets really well! There is even a fairly lengthy twilight unlike home where the sun sets and it's suddenly pitch black.

Mother and Daughter

Jess and her Evil Wicked step father

John and Barb

It was lovely catching up with all Jess' news. She had just come back from a trip to Brisbane where she had an interview for next year's O&G program. She wasn't overly confident about the outcome, but at least she gave it a shot. Time will tell.

Jess and John

The view from the restaurant

The food was amazing. We all chose different things from the menu and it was beautifully presented as well as delicious. Trust Jess to have sussed out the best places to eat in Darwin. We hope to catch up with her again on her next days off next weekend.

John tries the duck

Mmmnnn Dessert!