Barb & John's Hols: Day 11 Relaxing in Darwin

Day 11 Relaxing in Darwin

It was slow and leisurely today. It almost feels as though we are on holidays. Oh that's right we are!
Poor Jess, on the other hand, has had to work all day even though it's her birthday. Hopefully not too ghastly a day.

We took her recommendation to try out a place called Alley Cats in Darwin's CBD for lunch. We even managed to find an on-street parking space quite close by. Woo Hoo! The food at Alley Cats was simple but very good, with interesting sandwich fillings on lovely fresh breads or rolls. The high light of lunch, though, was when John sat down after taking photos, trod on the lower cable reel flange (look, the tables were recycled industrial size cable reels - ok?),which turned out to be balanced on ... well, any way, he managed to catapult most of Barb's coffee over Barb!

John enjoying the juice of the day

Barb with her meal and cappuccino before she wore half of it

Once calm had been restored we strolled around the Smith Street Mall, idly window shopping and enjoying that we had no particular agenda for the day. We had each spent a bit of time downtown when we were here for the Darwin Red Hat gathering in 2012, and remembered enjoying the Darwin Waterfront precinct where some of the ladies were staying in apartments overlooking Stokes Wharf.

The mall

So off we went, moving the car closer to this area and once again had no trouble finding a park, even though a lot of people were out enjoying the sunshine and swimming opportunities. There is a large free swimming lagoon and also a man made wave pool, which you have to pay to use. John was intrigued by the engineering involved in both these pool areas. We also spotted some quite large fish in the lagoon. Hopefully no stingers, sharks or crocs can sneak in though.

John at the Waterfront precinct

Well we hat to test the icecreams

The main swimming laggoon

The Darwin Convention centre is in the background

you can stroll out to Stokes wharf

The wave pool

There are also lots of out-door eateries and bars as well as some speciality shops and it would be a pleasant place to vacation. Still, we are are pretty pleased with our caravan park even though it doesn't boast great views. It has good facilities, including a couple of pools and the nearby airport isn't too disturbing in truth (Barb is ignoring the 3am flight that has roared over for the last couple of nights!). Best of all is the price .....