Australian football
Waiting for a bus back to my hostel I overheard a group of people saying they had a spare ticket to a football game (I assumed standard english soccer). I asked in my nicest english accent whether I might be able to take it off my hands. One hour later I'm standing at the Darwin stadium with a donated Bulldogs football scarf around my neck watching Melbourne Bulldogs vs Adelaide Port Power. Turns out Australian football and English football are two very different sports. Aussie football is played on an oval pitch, has a similar ball to american football and you hit the ball to each other like volleyball but then score points like rugby. Good game to watch and my new team (Bulldogs) won so all was good.
Jet skiing
After putting a few messages around on couch surfing one local (Frank) offered to take me out on his jet ski for the day. Went all around the Darwin harbour, tried to spot some crocodiles, watched an old Aussie sheila doing renditions of Amy Winehouse in a bar on the other side of the harbour. I had a go at driving and hit 110km/hr, turned a corner a little to sharply throwing the local straight off the back.
Mud crab
One of the local catches out in the harbour are mud crabs. After a night out on the town with some pearl harvesters another local (Irish Paul) offered to buy me a mud crab. Next day I took him up on his offer, along with some donated Red Emperor me and Welsh Ruth cooked up a seafood feast. Crab and fish were exceptionally good.
Other than that I've been working on finding a way out of this lovely country on a boat. And I found one. Originally I planned to travel on a rally of about 100 boats up north to Indonesia. However, I was introduced to Michael Moloney who lives and sails a 42ft catarmerang called Shayler. Hes not actually on the rally. We will be heading out on Saturday morning and will be sailing up the Thailand via the Ashmore Reef (4 days to reach here) then Christmas Island (7 days) and finally up round the top of Malaysia (10 days) to Phuket, Thailand.
It's going to be a very very long journey but when else in life do you get to hop on a 3 week long sailing trip. I've stocked up on books, dvd's, chocolate, vitamin tablets, got a whole hull of the ship to myself complete with double bed and ensuite...living in luxury compared to some of the backpacker hostels in Aus. We've stocked up on several trolleys worth of food and it seems pretty certain we will be catching some huge tuna for dinner along the way. I had a tuna sushi lesson with American Ruth and Tim aboard their catamerang last night so that will be fun to try out when we're cruisin.
Won't have internet until Christmas Island so expect an update in a week or so,
Love from sailer Grace x
