Blog 2 The story of the Free Spirits from the 24^th May

Thursday 24^thMay, we are still in Darwin at the Free Spirit caravan Park, did a trip down to Berry Springs, beautiful spot, the water is crystal clear and warm as it is fed from a spring close by, the problem is that its only about 500 meters down steam when the water turns brackish and then salty. They caught a 3.4 metre croc about 1500 meters upstream last week, but we are assured its safe as they have tree traps in the area.

That night we joined the crowd at the bar for schnitzel chicken, a few drinks, and to watch the footy, great to see once again Queensland up, although the New South Welshmen weren’t happy with what was a brilliant legitimate try.

The next night we all decided to go out for tea at the Darwin Sail Boat club, we hired a maxi taxi in and back, and were all able to have a great evening. The sunset was great, food great and company great.

In the taxi, hadn't had a drink yet

Sunset again

And the following night we all meet down at the back pool for a bbq and a “few” drinks.

The boyz behaving

The boyz playing up?

The Girls behaving

Kiss this baby

The girls misbehaving

Saturday we meet up with Mark our nephew, who is in the Army here with 5RAR, he was on exercise at Shoalwater Bay and we thought we had missed him, be they were given 2 weeks leave, and he had to come back here and do some paper work before he went to his family, so we went and had lunch down at the jetty.

The rest of the weekend was quiet just resting and relaxing, bit off shopping, reading, etc.

Monday we visited the Darwin Museum and Art Gallery, not allowed to take any photo’s there. The Museum’s goals were pretty broad with a mixture of themes and displays.  They had Sweetheart the 5.1 meter croc that was caught on the Finnis River in 1979. Other exhibits include a large selection of Aboriginal art and culture material, a large collection of boats of the Southeast Asian and Oceanic area, the history of the Territory and its natural sciences.

Tuesday we joined Phil and Bev for another trip to Berry Springs for lunch and a swim, took some goggles this time, lots of small fish in the pools, no crocs though.

Tuesday night saw the beginning of the end of the Free Spirits, Rod and Vicki had left on Sunday to go house sitting in Darwin, but they came back for another bbq down at the back pool, we played celebrity heads, much alcohol fuelled laughter and frivolity.

The breakup continued this morning with (Wednesday) with Dave and Sandi leaving heading west trail blazing for the rest of us, we are packing today as tomorrow we put the car and van into storage, stay the night in a unit here and fly back to Townsville for 3 weeks to see Lucas off. Gary and Michele are (hopefully) flying to Bali on Friday, if they can get their tickets sorted, Phil and Bev are here for a little longer then they also are putting their car and van into storage and flying home for a while