Friday – the day Greg made the last blog entry tuned into a bit of a debacle… He took the car in at 830am to have the windscreen replaced expecting it to take 2 hours or so and didn’t return to us until 230pm… The car was about 2km from the city so he did manage to wander around, but alas he had taken no sunscreen so spent his day crossing from one side of the road to the other to avoid the sun AND he was too miserly to buy himself lunch! Needless to say he returned to us a little grumpy having survived on only two coffees from McDonalds.

That day was redeemed by an afternoon visit to the Leander Waterpark – a free park in suburban Darwin which had numerous waterslides, a pool and play equipment with water etc. We put together a bit of a picnic dinner and the day finished well. Greg still won’t talk about the windscreen incident, insisting he has put it behind him. Oh and Greg and I did sneak off to the deck chair cinema – thanks Granny!!

All day the kids managed to entertain themselves nicely. Amy mostly playing with a neighbor (who happened to be from Canberra) climbing trees, visiting the jumping pillow and swimming pool. Oliver is into making things. With the help of Grandma Jumbos fishing knife he sharpened many sticks to make weapons of various sorts, he used leaves to make elaborate boats and he used his sandstone rock to draw on the concrete slab… Who needs toys!!

Saturday I left the packing up to those more expert then me, which meant we were on the road about 9am, this was essential as we needed to get to the Jumping Croc tour we’d booked for 11am. Which was a highlight from Greg’s perspective (Greg has also now taken up the commentary).

As a picture speaks a thousand words refer to piccies below. Also part of the tour (optional) was cuddling up with a rainbow python. The very same, as I understand it, as that commonly featured in indigenous dreaming. So a little hesitant as I was I stepped in to demonstrate there is nothing to fear but fear itself!

On the road to Darwin I decided it was time to be a passenger, much to Emma’s disdain, perhaps mum’s as well but she’s to polite to say so. The concern was not so much about the loss of my most excellent driving expertise as it was the instant increase in volume from the back seat. Its hard to blow raspeberries on children quietly though.