darwin

The work phone buzzes me awake at 4:45. No lazing under my thin doona this morning; my flight to Darwin lifts off at 7:10, the midday service too expensive. At 5:15 I’m out the door with vegemite toast in one hand and an insulated mug of tea in the other. It’s 8 degrees in pre-dawn Croydon; thick drizzle keeps the wipers swishing the length of the freeway.

Qantas load us onto QF671 for Adelaide then leave us on the tarmac for an hour because their Sydney computers are down and they can’t prove that our baggage load is ‘balanced’. The voice-over guy has the most annoying manner and pretentious turn of phrase. Our flight becomes QF754 from Adelaide to Darwin.

I chat with Michael Long—he came down to Melbourne for the Anzac Day game—as we straggle down the airbridge, tell him I met his brother in a tinnie on Darwin harbour two years ago, a trip I make with my good woman to attend a wedding that doesn’t happen. Eight years ago I come here on the Ghan as my then 78 year-old father’s carer.

I eat a second breakfast on the plane; it would be my third if had I taken Qantas’s offer on the leg to Adelaide. Half a continent passes beneath me while I watch a comedy called Carnage on my personal screen. Then we touch down.

The weather in Darwin is fine, 30 degrees, and no humidity smashing you like it does during the build-up in October. My taxi driver from the airport to the hotel is Do, Vietnamese. The receptionist is reluctant to let me have a room at 1:40 when check-in is at two. I feign royalty, stand mute, wait for the key.  

Room 613—same number I had in Parramatta two days ago—is at the top corner looking over the intersection of Knuckey and Smith. No car park. I set up my little eyrie—computer on the desk, button-up shirt in the wardrobe—and go hunting. I bag two samosas, then track down a few necessaries—panadol, teabags, chocolate, orange juice—at a supermarket.

Darwin is the place for sandals, a size ten pair of Keens on special from a sporting outlet. Back in 613 I answer work emails, return missed calls, sort paper. I read the news, then pull back the sheet—there’s no blanket on the bed—and kip for maybe an hour.

Darkness comes. The price of restaurant food here is grossly inflated, so I put on my new sandals and make for the halal Indonesian takeaway in the food court adjoining the hotel foyer. It’s closed, despite a sign, and the woman running it mid-afternoon, telling me it’s open till 8:30.

Darwin is booze culture; patrons spill out of the bars onto the footpaths. The restaurants are closed, closing or all but empty. I have my choice of any table at the Garam Marsala. The presentation of my kofta is ordinary—white bowl, no table-cloth—but the dish is plentiful and tasty, my glass of apple juice large enough to drown a small animal. Cardamom pods and cloves litter my finished plate.

Rock on.