So, Day 1 of our trip. Not much to report so far. To summarise the plan, we're here until early Friday then get on the boat and head due north, stopping at every little island. We end in Sorong, at the far western end of Papua/PNG, then fly back to Darwin and then to Adelaide the following morning.
We had an 11.45 flight to Darwin, so got to the airport excessively early, as usual, and sat around. It's a nearly four hour flight but was quite comfortable and smooth considering it was a smallish plane (an E190 if you're interested). Then a taxi to the hotel.
We're staying at the Ramada Suites by Wyndham Zen Quarter Darwin. That seems an unnecessarily long name and everywhere on the building it just says 'Zen'. It's fairly basic but more than enough for us for a few days. On the lower floors the walls are endless posters with kind-of-Zen-but-mostly-kitsch saying about keeping calm. A relentless assault of them, every metre or so. Luckily, by the time they reached our floor they seem to have run out because there was just one by the lifts.
The best thing about the hotel is that there is a rooftop bar. The drinks are fairly expensive but provided you drink something then there's a table of free food. We spent a bit of the afternoon up there and ate enough to count as dinner.
The biggest problem is that it's the wet season. So it's quite hot and extremely humid. That would put us off doing much if we could find much to do. A lot of the tourist activities (particularly the bookable tours, also the sunset markets) have closed.
Not that we could do much anyway. I buggered my knee, falling over, this time last week, so I have brace on it and a walking stick, and limp everywhere. I bought a trekking pole to use as my stick in the hope I look slightly less invalid. Fortunately, the doctor called yesterday evening and said I have a strained medial ligament and a lot of swelling that suggests my kneecap may have slightly popped out and back in again (they're not sure about that). But no ligament or meniscal tears, so it should heal up eventually.
So we might struggle to find things to do - you'll be relieved to hear that the next few posts might be much shorter.
Anyway, that's about it. We were hoping to watch a storm come in but gave up and went to our room, where we saw the corner of the sunset.
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