Adelaide River Queen

Thursday morning we are up early and packed up, we need to pop into town to get some block ice from Brian, some Coles bread (it stays fresh the longest up here) and off course a McDonalds breakfast. We stop off at the Salvo’s to pick up some tops for Kirsten, she left them on the bed in Adelaide.


Then off to the Adelaide River Queen to see the jumping crocodiles. As normal they are out straight away to see us on the boat. It’s a pretty cool insight into crocodiles and we get to see both the big adult males that live nearby.


Kirsten loses her hat off the boat and the lady does a good job blocking of the croc with the boat, which has zoomed over thinking it is a feed. The hat rescued and a bit of a story for later on too. Kirsten picked up some great shots of the crocs jumping for a feed.

The Kids are Darwin Bound

Well it’s August already, and that’s exactly how I started last month’s blog. I’m unemployed and my care free attitude let to my recent cricket performance on the weekend .My worst this year and luckily although the rest of team were off we still scraped through with a win. Tuesday see’s Tina off to work while I venture over to the Airport to pick up the kids. It’s been too long again but it is really good to see them again. They have both grown so much it is amazing. We head off from the airport to pick up Tina for lunch at the Chook shed. It seems they may have brought some cooler weather from down south as it is quite pleasant.

We pick up some shopping we need for tea and have a swim at the pool. It’s homemade fish and chips for tea Cod & Jewie. Wednesday and Tina is off to work again we have a full list of things to do today. Shopping, Tax (good bloke that tax man, well this year anyway) and off to MVR to finally get my NT license. Yes it’s true I’m a Territorian, well at least according to MVR.
We call past the yard to catch up with Brian, he is decking out a shipping container as a kitchen and as we are keen to maybe build a container house we are always interested in ideas. Well we ended up doing all the jobs except for all the ones we need to get ready to go camping. It’s Wednesday so its walking night, the kids go too and Brian has organised a bike for Jason as the men folk cycle and the women folk walk. As usual I don’t go but I was making tea, roast chicken and veges. It turns out nice even if I didn’t make the cream gravy Brian wanted. Back to the park and packing up camping gear that night.

July Cricket results written by Johnnie F

Cricket results, 3-Jul

We ventured down to beautiful Gardens Oval to take on the Waratahs footballers.

The day started well with winning the toss = batting first! There was some good tight bowling early and runs were tough to come by. Jason "Growth" Hatton and Manish fell for not many, and then Alex "Buddy" Krepapas and Chris "NASA" Parker put on an excellent 112 run partnership. Chris was launching balls into the upper atmosphere, with one eventually landing on the roof of the largest grandstand - massive! Chris made 66 and Alex 58. A few others chipped in as we tried to keep the runs flowing while wickets were falling. At the end we were 9/210.

Brad "Jazzman" Hatton and Andy "The new Snell?" Moore bowled well and ripped through the top-order, snaring 3 each. Michael "good to be home" Best came on to spin up 3 wickets, with Nathan Jury capping a wonderful day in the field by taking a caught and bowled (his second catch of the day!). Tah-tahs saying ta-ta for 126.
10-Jul-10
We met 2nd on the ladder PINT at Nightcliff. I lost the toss and was asked to bowl first, against an opposition missing a few key players.

Brad "count the steps" Hatton and Anthony "vuvuzela" Snell started well. Brad picked up 4 (off his '10' overs) and Snelly 1, to again decimate the top-order. Andy "007" Moore pushed his claims to be in the opening pair by snaring 3/4 and Nathan "Executioner" Jury claimed 2. A great bowling and fielding performance saw PINT all out for a meagre (but magical) 69.

Alex "straight line" Krepapas was run out early, after being called through for a 3rd by Jason "danger end" Hatton and almost colliding with his partner, he was found metres short after a direct hit from the keeper. Jason was hitting the ball beautifully until out for 30 with scores tied. Colin "Mr Cricket" Ralph was elevated to number 3 and relished the opportunity, scoring a quickfire 15. Manish "!" Bhatnager and Adam "finally got a hit" Glover easily got us home. We ended up 4/82.
17-Jul-10
Won the toss and batted. After losing Jason Hatton cheaply, Krepapas and Bhatnagar kept runs flowing against tight bowling, each scoring mid-teens. Chris Parker entered the scene to again show his class. Great hitting with controlled aggression saw him smash 84 off 84. He featured in a 100+ run partnership with Fryar (41). Andy Moore came in for an excellent 39no off about 20 balls, with Michael Best and Brad Hatton chipping in with some quick runs towards the finish. We ended up with 6/252.

Brad and Anthony Snell kept some pressure on early but wickets were hard to come by. Nathan Jury finally broke through, and Sunny Singh grabbed another soon after. Jabiru were 2/91 at drinks, with one of their openers on 71. Besty replaced Jury and with Singh made it very hard for the batsman to score as quickly as they needed to. The required run rate escalated quickly. We picked up a couple more wickets, some catches went down and as the sun was setting, we finally got through our overs - Jabiru 6/196.

A good win and good work-out for us.

Andy's Unemployed

I found out this week that CSG will not be able to renew my contract. In the new model set up by NTG there are no projects (long story) so NTG are going to manage them. So it is a bit quite in my last couple of weeks so they give me a facilities manage roll where I have to shut down all the old buildings we used to be in. We have just moved to the 8th & 9th floor of a brand new building and closed down 4 old sites. It has been quite interesting. Friday was my last day and a little sad but I will miss the CSG guys I actually really enjoyed working with them and built up a good relationship with quite a few of the people there.

July in Dry

Well its July already, how the months pass so quickly while you are working, yes believe it or not Tina and I are still on the 9-5 life. Pays the bills and is swelling our savings account so all good.
The dry season has all but disappeared and the locals are confused. Its getting hot already and some days are quite steamy. We had an overnight low of 27° the other night boy it was hot.
We have pretty standard routine these days Wednesday Tina goes walking with Jan, Thursday Night Cricket training followed by tea and a stay over at Brian & Jan’s. I have been working a fair bit Saturday mornings so Tina has a sleep in. We do some shopping and bum around. Sunday is Cricket day and Tina comes to watch and has a few beers. I’m the designated driver on Sundays and we often hang around for a few after the game if it doesn’t finish too late. Then Monday it’s off to work again to start it all over again.

We have been getting out to Dundee a bit more to finish off that tiling, wow Dundee is bulk flash now. The fishing has been a little light on though, bloody tourists, and with the road getting better more people with bigger boats are getting out there. Lucky we have Jan with us to keep the numbers up.

The sunsets are still just as spectacular each time we go there. The other week long time friends of Tina’s Doug & jenny came up form SA. We had a great time and ate lots of Lamb that he had brought up with him it was very nice. On the way out to Dundee with them I hit a Wallaby our first road kill ever with the Tojo. Pretty impressive given the amount of k’s we have done and the outback roads we have travelled. So life goes on and we grow ever fonder of Darwin. It’s a great lifestyle.

V8's at Hidden Valley

It’s V8 weekend in Darwin so we have another week off cricket. Tina got some tickets form work for Friday which is the practice day. V8’s really aren’t my scene but at least we can say we went. We can certainly hear them OK for the rest of the weekend at the van Park.

Queens Birthday

It’s the Queen’s birthday long weekend and it’s the longest I have had off from work for 8 months. We head off at 2:00PM and drive out to Litchfield park to camp at Florence falls. We try a couple of camp spots that are full but find a great spot overlooking the valley.
We have spaghetti Bolognese in a tin and listen to Carlton loose to Nth Melbourne and I even loose at cards. Beer is nice and cold and we drink a bottle of Moscata which is yummy.
We eventually get up have some breakfast and hit the road, first stop the Lost city which we went to in one of Brian’s Tojo’s about 7 years ago. The road seems better and it’s a little greener than I remember. Off to all the water falls but most are closed still, obviously haven’t found all the Salties yet. Back to camp and we go for a walk to Blueys Waterhole for a swim its a good walk and we are hot and bothered by the time we get there. Its coolish but refreshing and packed with people. I left the Camera battery on the charger so back to camp before we head down to Florence falls for another swim. It’s pretty packed and people a climbing up to the top of the falls and jumping, our beers are empty so we head back, its chicken casserole and rice on the campfire. It’s quite warm today and it’s only just starting to cool down now the sun has set. I really miss being on the road and this really brings it home how much you miss it. But you know what, you need money to travel so you have to work as well.




We awake to another beautiful smoke filled sunrise, we pack up quickly and hit the road to Dundee. It’s quite a long drive and there is plenty of Wildlife on the road, Eagles, Hawke’s, Wallabies, Dingo’s and even Jabiru’s. Now there is a bird you don’t want to run into. We were just waiting to see the Croc walking across the road and we would have seen it all. Its a good 2 hours to get to Dundee Brian, Jan rob and his crew aren’t quite as ready as we expect. So its eskies ice bait and don;t forget the beer and we are off. We pay our $20 fee for the tractor man and loads us into the water and we are off as usual Rob waits for no one and he is off. It’s a fairly quite day at the start With the odd fish before Jan catches a huge Lemon Shark the same one she always catches. We pick up some nice cod and snapper and then Jan lands another big Jewie. Dylan Robs grandson catches a big one to so it is a good day. As usual it is a feast of food that night.