Darwin – At last

It was a long long way from Tasmania to Darwin but we have finally made it. A week ago – after sailing the distance from Bavaria to India – we finally anchored off Darwin. The plan was to move in to a marina round the corner so we took the dinghy up the river. It was low tide and we grounded which is pretty hard to do in a dinghy with ten centimeters of keel. The tides in Darwin are crazy, low tide is nothing and high tide is six or seven meters. We could not find the entrance to the marina so we asked a fisherman who sent us back and told us where to look. We found the lock gate about four meters above us at the top of a stone wall. The next morning it was high tide and we sailed effortlessly in. Strange.

We wrote to all our Australian friends saying “What should we do in Darwin?” and immediately David from the yacht Dancer wrote “I landed at the airport 15 minutes ago.” He was working but visited us in the marina and we could catch up on what had been happening since we last saw each other in Tasmania. That was a great surprise.

In the evening we were at the chip shop and met Ulrike and Wilhelm who have just driven here from Heidelberg – www.wolfx.de. Amazing! We sailed one way round the world and they drove the other way and we met in a Darwin chip shop.

We put the bikes together and cycled to the Charles Darwin National Park. You are only a few kilometers from the city but in the middle of the “bush” and they have great MTB tracks all around the park. After lots of trailing we cycled out of the bush and across the road to the industrial estate to buy parts to repair the boat. What a land of contrasts.

And today we changed the last two leaking windows for our new polycarbonate versions. We now finally have eight waterproof windows. Life is good.