Darwin and those Dang Blasted Cane Toads

Hello dear blogsters,

Well we were up early and packed ready for our move to Darwin. We didn't have a huge drive - but enjoyed stopping at Noonemah to have a look at the display in relation to the World War 2 airfields there. Grandpa (Mum's dad) served here and it was great to have a look at the displays and try to imagine what it was like for him to be here - he was serving here around the time Mum was born! The picture below was in the display - it shows the soldiers changing the tyre of a plane - using a human jack!

We drove on to Darwin and quickly found the caravan park where we had booked in. We were glad to have pre-booked as they are full tonight (over 250 vans, tents etc). Anyway, Uncle John got cracking and gave his "cart" a good wash. Dan and I went out with Mum and Dad to WOW so they could change over Dad's Navman. We have been waiting since we were at the bottom of WA to get to a WOW store to change it over. We gave the Navman to dad for Christmas - but it died at Norseman and we have had to wait to get it changed for a new one. Glad the changeover went well and now Dad has his new toy to play with. We also drove into the centre of Darwin to pick up some mail from the post office. It is a funny city - sort of a bit quieter than Bendigo - strange for a capital city.

Tonight we headed over to the shed for the cane toad races. I "bought" a toad for race 4, as did Mum. They didn't tell us when we got the toads that we would actually have to pick the slimy buggers up and put them in the starting bucket. Mum did really well and actually seemed to enjoy handling her toad (odd given her toad wacking experience a couple of nights ago). I didn't feel quite so good about it - let me be clear about this - I will NEVER EVER voluntarily touch a cane toad again - utterly gross. Our toads didn't win either! The compare for the evening was wearing a jacket made of toadskins and he "kindly" let me wear it - ugh gross!

For the last race, I very kindly purchased a toad for Danni. She didn't seem to keen to touch her toad at first - but seemed to be on rather close terms with him by the end of the whole experience.

The night finished with everyone sitting around watching the thugby state of origin game. It was rather bizarre as every couple of minutes you couldn't hear a thing because of the fighter jets taking off just above us - the airforce base is beside us and there is a major international airforce exercise on here at the moment. The jets are taking off all the time and boy are they LOUD. It's a bit weird watching them take off and shoot over us, complete with bombs and missiles on board. Hopefully they will stop soon so we can all get some peace.

Well that's it for tonight blogsters - - oh my golly there go another 6 fighter jets and they are flying low and loud. ARGHHHHHHHHH!