Fishing

John, our house owner, has a boat, and one day, all the boys in the house decided to go fishing. So we cooked our meat, got our drinks and fishing rods and got onto the boat in the morning. The boat is anchored at Cullen Bay, probably the costliest place in Darwin to live, with each house costing a few million dollars.



So, we got outside the bay and set off to the sea, but then someone told us that the sea was too rough that day for fishing, and we ended up taking a roundabout to go to the mouth of a close by river.



Beautiful green mangroves lined both sides of the coast.




Resident fishing expert Jens helped set my fishing rod, and after a basic lesson, I set off fishing. Did not have a successful stint, but we managed to catch a shark and a para fish.



Released the shark back into sea, and fried the para for dinner. Maybe next time, we will manage to catch the famous Bara.

Food for thought

The chance to experience the local cuisine is one of the best benefits of travel. Yes, it does occasionally put me in some unpalatable situations, like those times that I had to eat frog legs or raw fish, but most of the times, I have been glad I did it. Food is so much intertwined with local culture and ecology that its impossible to understand a place well without tasting the local diet. Most of the popular food in any particular place is something made of locally grown and therefore fresher stuff and definitely healthier than the fast-food alternative.

Darwin, because of its tropical climate has a much greater variety of fruits and veggies available than many other places. The best place to find fresh stuff is the Rapid-Creek Sunday market, although getting up at 7am on the rare Sunday I am not working, needs quite a bit of motivation.



Anyways, the reason for the huge prologue is the new fruit I have recently discovered. With a red hairy exterior and white flesh inside, Rambutan tastes very sweet, and almost like తాటి ముంజలు from back home.

With my latest food fad now being to increase my fresh fruit intake, I am gulping as many rambutans, pears, kiwis and melons as I can. Another recent introduction has been the Avacado. I had it the first time in Nani anna's place in San Diego, and was surprised to find that it was grown here too in NT. A bit scared to eat it too much though due to its high fat content.

My next aim is to find some bush tucker- food eaten by native aboriginals.

Interesting tit-bit - the 'Kiwi' fruit is actually a native of India and has been brought to NZ by a missionary from India. How come I never came across this stuff back home!!

La Brea Tar pits

Visited La Brea with Nani anna in Feb this year when I went there for my exams.
Strangely, this find of ancient fossils is located at the heart of the urban metropolis of LA.

Asphalt (tar), has seeped up from the ground in this area for tens of thousands of years, forming hundreds of sticky pools that trapped animals and plants which happened to enter. Over time, the tar fossilized the remains. The result is an incredibly rich collection of fossils dating from the last ice age.





These pits are supposed to have helped us understand a lot about the ice age animals and might still throw more surprises in future. The fossils have a reddish bronze look about them and look like beautiful sculptures of art. Couldn't help wondering how majestic all those huge mammals might have looked - especially the woolly mammoths and the saber-toothed cat.
One of the pits, is still regularly excavated for a couple of months each summer by volunteers and we got to see the work in action.

Litchfield National Park

Been to Litchfield yesterday. It’s about 150km from Darwin, located in about 1500sq km, with

lush green forests and gorgeous fresh water holes and falls – some of the most unpolluted water
sources.





Got to see my first marsupial in the wild – a Walaru as it was drinking water from a waterhole.



The magnetic termite mounds are fascinating. All aligned in North-South direction so as to minimize sun exposure and tall enough to survive wild fires and flash floods. Also famous for their inbuilt air-conditioning systems. Architects are increasingly studying and copying them to build greener and energy efficient buildings.

Florence falls was fantastic. Will definitely go back again, this time, better prepared for a swim.





The next stop was Tolmer falls. Had a nice walk through the forest there.



Wangi is the most famous of all falls. Sadly, the water was off limits as there has been recent flash floods in the region. But still quite a gorgeous site to see.

Flying-fox is a type of bat which is very human-shy and the particular species found in Litchfield is rare too. So we were fortunate to see some of them, albeit from a respectful distance. Can u spot them in the photos?




Wild fires are part of the natural cycle here, occurring in every dry season, followed by fresh growth of foliage during the wet season. You can see the burnt forest floor in some of the snaps.

At the end of the trip, we took a wrong turn and got lost in the wilderness and drove for what felt like ever through the green bushes with absolutely no human contact. The roads reminded me of the bike trip I did through the Nallamalla forests few years ago. Anyway, after a few nervous moments, finally managed to get back safely to Darwin, although Roy's two week old car needed a good wash desperately.