Luxury comes to Winnellie

Its been a pretty quite week and we have settled in working life. Some time down the pool socialising, late night teas after Tina finishes work.

Tina worked Friday night so I headed into and had a couple of beers waiting. Saturday we had tea at Brian & Jan’s and a sleep over.
Today we are off to look at a new caravan at Humpty Doo. It is flash as and has all the mod cons. Shower, Toilet and a real bed. It doesn’t take long to agree this is what we wanted and we negotiate a sale price. We are very excited abut this.

At lunch I organised the bank cheque for the Van and in the afternoon went out to Humpty Doo to pick it up. Tina was at work so I drove it home and got it to fit on our site. Couldn’t bloody power it up though because I have no 15amp lead, so another night in the old van. I got a new cord form Bunning’s the next day and all was good.
We were already getting a fair bit of shit from our van park friends about the new mansion. During the week we couldn’t really do much.

Fishing @ Dundee

Today we are going fishing, at last. We were up early and a few sore heads after yesterdays efforts. Andy & I went in Rob’s boat, Jan & Dad in their Barra boat. We went off in different directions, we went off to the area where there are “no fish” and hooked onto a school of Snapper, yeeee haaaaa it was great fun, a few fish caught all round.

We moved on as the small fish moved in, we made a stop at the Dewy Hole no one landed anything but there were certainly some big hook ups, then the small fish dropped by again. We went off looking for Dad & Jan down on Beestie’s reef, when we found them the wind had picked up and it gotten a bit choppy so getting our sandwiches for lunch was a bit tricky, the rest of the after noon was not very exciting and we must have had a “little fish feed here” sign painted on the bottom of the boat. Anyway at the end of the day we all got several meals out of the catch but not the 5-10kg per person as promised hey Dad and Rob

The great slab @ Dundee Beach

Happy Birthday to my little one year old niece Emily, wish I was there to give you a bug hug and kiss, oh well plenty of time for that at Christmas time yeah.
We get up before 6 and get ready to head down to Dundee Beach, we are helping Dad & Jan to lay a slab between the 2 dongers he has out there, that are starting to look very spiffy with the veranda and tiled bathroom, instant hot water in the kitchen, and since the great sausage escape (Dad left the freezer open on Wednesday needless to say it wasn’t just the sausages that escaped) finally the green carpet tiles are gone too! About an hour after we arrived the concrete truck arrived we lined up with our wheel burrows and off we went Jan & Rob under the roof smoothing it out with help from dad.

Andy myself & the truck drivers son wheeling the burrows in & out with loads. We all worked just like clock work, and it came together a lot sooner than I had expected. There was some concrete left as hopped, just enough to do the outdoor bathroom which will have a lovely pink bath, and water operated long drop (dads invention) and a shower, all that can be done in the piece of the bush. The boys were a bit mad cause the truckie loaded the wheel burrows a lot heavier for this trip which was quite a long way away.

Tonight we watched a very spectacular sunset with our cold beverage of choice on the cliff face at Dundee which is a tradition every sunset. Andy and I slept out in the Gazebo, it is very romantic with the purple mozzie net and moon light.

The Last Mindle Markets

We don’t seam to be doing much at the moment, working lots and trying to get into some sort of a routine seeing as I work to 9pm most nights dinner has been a bit tricky but I reckon we nearly have it sorted out. I like working in the bottle shop there is lots of interaction with so many different types of people. It has had it’s moments when people won’t leave when asked or you have get the security guards involved, when they get upset and slag you under their breath or break beers, always cleaning up after someone else, ha ha those sorts incidents don’t happen very often but they are a regular occurrence. I think Andy is settling in well, The person he has taken over from left last Friday so is he is running solo, although he does not work for the government he has to deal with them on a daily bases, so he getting to know the good coffee houses as that is were they hold most of their meetings ! Nah just joking but he may be getting a caffeine addiction if we don’t keep tabs on it.
Thursday night was with last night of the Mindle Beach Markets, and yes I have the night off so we arranged with Dad & Jan to pick us up and we head down for a glass of wine and a beer with dinner while the sun goes down, the sunset is a little cloudy and I left the camera back at Dads place. Then at 9pm they let of a bunch of fire works it was very beautiful, no wonder the Markets fund is going broke
The Tojo has been sent down to Palmerston for some serious repairs. A new genuine clutch kit and all the seals as well as the new Timing belt and injector pump leak fix. All is good and only for $ 1800 a bargain. Its first test is out to Dundee Beach and back. Its mostly Bitumen but still has a stretch of nasty dirt road.

Earthquake hits Darwin

Well as you can see I’m not quite as good as Andy is at keeping a daily account of what we have been doing I certainly need more practice.
This week while lounging around the pool with some other people from the park that we often see of an afternoon there, commented on our veggie garden & fridge, their quite happy to know they have cold beers available even if we are not home & some herbs to add to their meals! They are definitely a good conversation starter with some of the other residence of the park.
Dad & Jan came back from Boyne Island very early Wednesday, that dam 1.30am flight hey Mel! I caught up with dad and had a coffee, gee he is looking really good. He looks like Uncle Warren! With his cute chubby cheeks!
I am still working most nights which has been a little tricky working out how to get home so Andy doesn’t have to always pick me up after 9pm, I m sure we will work something out, it also means we have still not had our celebration dinner with Dad & Jan for our new jobs, and they are off to Dundee Beach for the weekend so still no fishing for Andy.
Sat-24-Oct-09
The first time I get to drive to work (free parking on Saturdays) and I’m late, seam it takes a bit longer then I would have thought, especially when you get all 5 red lights on the way in. I finished work at 9pm and Andy and I had a BBQ and sat up reflecting on the week gone by drinking the hot night away when the concrete began to shake and wobble, for a moment there we thought it may been the effects of the beer and heat, that was until several of our neighbours jumped out of their van/bus and asked if we have felt that too! I think is registered at around 7.6 on the rector scale. It was Andy’s first earth tremor and my second; I remember one from when I was in grade 5 or 6, I thought is was mum shaking the bed to wake me up. It seems to me that a lot of this trip has been reliving many childhood memories; I suppose that is not so hard to believe I did live in the NT for 15 years on and off.

Hilltop Hoods in Darwin

Hi it’s Tina, Andy has asked me to help out a bit more with the blogging now that he has to work 8am-5pm Monday-Friday. So you are going to hear more from me, not a bad thing though I need to practice my typing now that I don’t work with a computer everyday. Tonight we are going to the Hill Top Hoods concert at Discovery it is kind of like HQ in Adelaide, man it was so hot in there we were both completely drenched by the end of it. They did a good set though shorter than we expect, it was great. We have now seen them in 3 states. DJ Vent rocked the house.
Sat-17-Oct-09
I spent today recovering from the HTH concert, I was not very hung over its just in Darwin you can still smoke in pubs & clubs, so I had that passive smoking hang over. Someone also stomped on my foot so I am hobbling around, as if my feet didn’t hurt enough already, I am not used this working thing & being on your feet all day. It is Andy’s last day at Liqourland, I think he is a little sad about that.
Sun-18 Oct-09
We started our veggie garden today I was so happy doing this cause I have really missed it since being on the road. We found a large Styrofoam box by the rubbish bins, yes we are stilling making use of other peoples rubbish. We used this box for the lettuce, Thai basil, sage, parsley, thyme and spring onions, and we got a big pot from Dad’s place and planted a cherry tomato bush. Today we also picked up a very large tarp to put over the caravan and slab so we are always under cover, it is quite good and with the fan going it is wonderful. This hopefully will keep us dry and the bat poo off the van.

Life In Darwin

Liquorland isn’t open so we have a day off. Plenty off things to do Swimming in the pool sitting around it seems weird because we haven’t been here that long but it seems like we are already settled in. We buy a fridge from the Good Guys because the caravan fridge hasn’t been working very good for a long time and the heat is really making the car fridge struggle. It’s a good buy, last floor stock. We are bulk excited this is the first time Tina has ever brought a new fridge. Its great cold beer, water and room to actually buy some stuff. Can’t get carried away though its not that big. Watched Bathurst shame Lowndes & Winncup didn’t win but it was pretty exciting. In the arvo we headed down to Mindal Beach markets.

Got an interview or two but not really what I’m looking for we worked most of the week and got a phone interview for a cool job as a project manager for a company that does IT infrastructure projects for the NT Government. I must of done alright because I start on Friday, first time I ever got a job without a face to face interview. It’s a little bit of a shame because I actually enjoy working for Liqourland just the pay isn’t that good.