Last year we had taken a ship's tour before spending our afternoon seeking out the Pack N Ship location to send home the beautiful glass bowl we had won at the ship's Hot Glass Show. We ran out of time before we could do much else. This year we decided to walk, shop and enjoy Darwin's downtown.
We were proud of our plan. Execution went well, but we were dampened by the weather. It is always hot this time of year, but this was the hottest day of the year so far. Temp was 96 with a heat index of 107. Hydration was the order of the day.
There are a lot of shops downtown. We were interested in aboriginal art, especially dot paintings. The first gallery we came to was brightly lit in a contemporary style. They had a large selection of what we were looking for. This was the one gallery we had been able to visit last year. We spent 40 minutes perusing the inventory. It was organized by size. Within each size it was organized by artist. The gallery provides the prepared canvas to the artists. They then create whatever painting they wish. Each artist's style is very distinctive. We reached the stage where we could identify the artist without looking at the name card.
We loved what we saw, but found the pricing a bit high. Clearly their overhead was a factor. We selected a few paintings titled Dreamtime Sisters, and buried them in a stack just in case we would come back.
After a few stops at souvenir shops, we found a bookstore that had two books that define the symbols used in aboriginal art. Then illustrations of paintings with their accompanying stories further explained the symbolism. These were exactly what we were seeking. They took most of our remaining Australian dollars. This was fine, as Darwin is our last port in Australia.
Moving along we found another interesting old bookstore. Mixed in with new titles were second hand volumes. A quick look through the shelves took us to a table covered with aboriginal paintings. After half an hour of sifting through these, we were at a side stairway. Above it was a sign telling us there was more gallery upstairs. We climbed the narrow stairway to find ourselves in a large room with art on the walls, several large tables and the floor. This was not as organized as the first gallery we visited, but we found it to be more interesting and more reasonably priced. After looking through the stacks of paintings on the tables, we carefully navigated the piles on the floor. When we thought we had seen all of them, we were in another room almost as large as the first. Doing justice to these works meant carefully moving them from pile to pile, reading the attached artist's bio and then reading the explanation of the scene. Now there was a third room. We followed the same procedure. There were just too many to choose from. The shopkeeper let us photograph a few, when she realized we really were not buying any.
Just the first room
Seven Sisters
I asked how many paintings she had in inventory. She asked if I was from the Tax Service. She had over 250 paintings. She apologized for having so few. More would come in from the Outback next month. She was a bit short on cash right now. That is why she held firm on her prices. She said she tried to price her art fairly. She was far more reasonable than the first gallery. We found another book on aboriginal art. This purchase brought our currency to less than $10 Australian.
Now we were in search of Woolworths. This was not a dime store like we had in our youth, but a grocery chain. After a long walk we found it. We looked for Tim Tams. We learned that these chocolate covered wafers were in the biscuits aisle. Our port lecturer had raved about these. We bought a package.
We had been hydrating due to the heat. What went in did not all sweat out, so we asked about the toilet. See the security guard for the key. We trundled off looking for the gentleman. Easy, he said. They are outside around the corner. The key is for the employees, but the disabled toilet is unlocked.just use that, and you don't have to come back in with the key. Bravo!
In her lecture about Darwin Barbara had mentioned that she thought there was a Target store near Woolworths. Back in Woolworths a clerk told us that Target had moved about 30 minutes from downtown. Maybe next time.
We left the store, and ere confronted by a golden dragon motivated by two young boys to the music of drums and gongs. There dance told a story. At one point the dragon spewed out torn lettuce. Wish we could have nderstood the symbolism. This went on for several minutes. They even danced into and through the aisles of the pharmacy next to Woolworths. A Chinese man with the group came up to us, and warned us to cover our ears. He had firecrackers. As the dance ended he lit them and dropped them into a bucket. Boy were they loud. This all was part of a Chinese New Year celebration.
We started to walk back toward the shuttle stop. We passed a store with beautiful aboriginal fabric designs in the window. Boo. They were closed. Back at the pedestrian mall the tourist map showed us where the wifi hotspots were. We also located the Coles store and mall. First we tried the wifi next to the map. It was hard to find a free bench. This usually means too many users and slooow speed. Absolutely.
We headed toward the Coles and the mall. On the way we spied a few of the crew on a bench in the shade of a large tree. The Internet was faster here. We would try it after our visi to the mall. We still wanted to find didgeridos and we had been told to look for good didg music by David Hudson. Coles turned out to be another supermarket. The other stores were shoes and clothes until we came to an electronics store like a Best Buy. We looked for cd's. Did not see any, so we asked. We learned that there are no cd stores in Darwin. All music is downloaded on the Internet. iTunes etc.
The last shop was a souvenir store. No cd's here, but they did have didgeridos. The prices were reasonable, and the artwork was acceptable, but with no shipping available we had no way to get one home. Several years ago we did bring one home for Sean. That was before TSA and airport security. I will ask him if I can borrow it.
Alice found a bar of lemon scented soap which she could not smell. I loved it. Their went our last $4.
Back at the big tree I sent pictures to update my previous blog posts. This was very fast.
We walked out to the park along the water, and started back toward the shuttle stop. It was a beautiful walk, but the heat was oppressive. At the shuttle stop we learned that we shared it with the Princess passengers. They had to show tickets to ride. Ours was prepaid by Holland America. After a short ride to the pier, I suffered a brain cramp and bolted from the last row to the exit before the others. I did not want to get stuck gong to the Princess pier. I think the heat had finally caught up to me. I have not done that on any other bus. Alice was mortified as she politely waited her turn. She says there are still passengers who look at me crossly. It won't happen again, as even I felt bad after the fact. Just not bad enough to buy drinks for anyone.
War Memorial in perk above the coast
All in all this was a delightful return to Darwin.
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