Kaka-Doh! (Part 1: Darwin)

Don’t expect this as a regular return. I was just slightly inspired by Dan’s prodding to right about a recent trip I took. It also returns to the original reason I wrote this blog: So I can remember cool things I did in Oz down the line. In the beginning, it chronicled my learning to cope. In the middle, it documented my sexcapades and unintentional outing; my transformation from closet case to someone filled with identity pride. Now all that’s left is the travel. So allow me to regale you with my time in Darwin, more for my sake than yours.

And just a side note, don’t try reading it all in one sitting. It’s just too long and detail oriented.

Upon arrival at the airport, we check our bags at the counter. The not-bad-looking man at the counter asks me where I’m going, so I tell him Darwin. He asks me my name, so I tell him, and he punches away at his keyboard. Two slips of paper pop out of the printer, and he staples them together and hands them to me. Then he weighs my bag, and satisfied by its light mass, sends it on the conveyer belt to get boarded on the plane.

What’s wrong with this picture? Oh, right, they never checked my I.D. Not once. I told them my name, and they gave me my ticket. Security nearly confiscated my aerosol bug spray can, and wanded my bag for drugs and bombs, but they too failed to check my idea. It wasn’t even the fact that I could be a terrorist that bothered me, because really, who’d want to suicide attack Darwin? It’s the fact that I so so easily could’ve just stolen anyone’s ticket with only their name.

We then boarded the plane, which consisted of walking out onto the tarmac in a lightning storm. Believing that boarding a plane could never be cool, Australia never fails to surprise me.

4 hours, 4 book chapters, 3 Kaiser Chiefs albums and 1 frantic hair pulling session later, we arrived at Darwin at about 1am. I enjoyed my first experience in a backpacker hostel. The whole place was dirty, the front desk manager was gruff and tattooed from head to toe, his assistant repeatedly reminded us of her opinion that all Americans are idiots, most of our keys couldn’t open our doors (unless we really are idiots), housekeepers threatened us for things we didn’t do, our roomies were angry Irishmen who cursed in their sleep, and I refused to take a dip in the fluid-filled “hot tub” at the end of the hall.

I also got no sleep, which would set the pattern for the next 4 nights.

The next day, we arose bright and early for our free day in Darwin. After feeding fish in the harbor in the morning, we ran out of things to do. So we walked the Esplanade, which made for a surprisingly mellow morning. We saw some beautiful vistas, beautiful flowers, and wrinkly people. I spent much of it trying to avoid being bitten by Green Ants, an animal that would come to take its revenge later. We also walked down to the empty rocky beach, where I caught crabs. These itched less than the ones from the hostel bed.

From the wrinkly old people, we learned about Darwin’s rich history during World War 2, which consisted mostly of getting bombed once. This was apparently enough to make a film staring Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman to be released next year. If you believe this is weak grounds to make a movie, you’d be right. Just look at Pearl Harbor.

Other highlights of the day include multiple failures to catch a Gilbert’s Dragon (those fuckers run fast!), a successful capture of a strange blotchy gecko that could be an entirely new subspecies, and a skink whose spine I accidentally broke in the capture process. This would set the pattern for the rest of the trip, as I would not once catch a skink alive. I ate a kangaroo burger (stringy, but delicious), and we were done with the entire city by lunch. So we spent our afternoon essentially trying to find me a place to buy board shorts. Hiking in 100+ degrees and humidity is a bitch in jeans.

I succeeded in buying some nice shorts, but this was the first time I’d been outside in non-jeans in 2 years. In comparison to the color of my legs, Casper looks downright negro. I also hadn’t automatically learned to lube up my legs when going hiking, and enjoyed a dry red cracking burn in the stretchy back of my knees the entire trip.

A night of no sleep, the first of many, and its time to take nature by the horns.