week twenty two | darwin, northern territory

There is something to really be said for reverse culture shock. Perhaps it’s unexpected nature, or the fact that after a trip that was filled with stress, overwhelming challenges, difficult cultural and lingual shifts and an overall lack of home comforts (and sleep) there is very little time to process what getting home might mean.

Post Timor-Leste all I could think about was getting back into the swing of things and getting down to some serious big picture development work from my familiar surroundings in inner Melbourne. However before that, we had to spend some time in an Australian city as foreign as the ones we’d encountered in Timor-Leste.

Darwin sits at the top of Australia, the distant capital sitting above the vast red desert heart of Australia.

I’ve done shamefully little travel around most of my lovely home country and so this between-flight stopover presented a perfect, if not tiny, opportunity for me to see what’s up in this end of the country.

We arrived late in the evening, the air just as muggy as when we left Australia but this time the sticky breeze proved a welcome change from the overwhelming dryness we had been in for the last three weeks. After stowing our packs we hopped into a cab and headed towards the famous Mindil Beach Markets. They were just awesome, with live music filling the air, people smiling and dancing. It felt good to be home, but I was also left with a real sense of needing to travel more within Australia as soon as possible. This feeling was probably also exasperated by the fact I was reading “Tracks” at the time, a fantastic book written by Robyn Davison about her journey across the western Australian desert.

After our wander, and food tour of the markets we decided to meander down to Darwin’s main strip. In the darkness Darwin seemed quiet and a lot like other Australian cities. The strip was small, just a series of bars and pubs, and very ‘boys-night-out’ as we had unfortunately picked state of origin night to have our walk.

If international travel gives you better insight into the world around you, then coming home surely provides a brief reflective period of self-discovery. Perhaps the most noticeable one for us three girls was that as much as sexism and gender was a hot topic for our work in Timor-Leste, the wolf whistles and disgusting things shouted our direction from those bars was a horrifying way to be welcomed home.

Overall the trip to Darwin was one I was happy happened, but equally as happy to have behind me, however I’m willing to believe that it was the shortest of trips and poor Darwin got a very tired and overwhelmed Matilda rather than a rested one, ready for anything.

I’d like to go back, I’d like to see it in the daylight and to make some less uncomfortable memories. Because from what I have heard, Darwin is a pretty lovely place.

2/5 HIPPY MARKET STALLS

week twenty one | cape paterson, vic

Oh holidays, how lovely you are. Now it might seem strange (considering this blog) but I don’t actually go on many holidays. I think it’s okay – I love the fact that more often than not, the trips I take are for work, and that I am able to have wonderful day trips to so many cool places – but boy oh boy did I need some time to do absolutely nothing, and Cape Paterson was the perfect place to do it in.

Cape Paterson is on the coast west of Melbourne, an area I have never visited before. It’s pretty quiet and seems much less touristy then the Great Ocean Road region to the east. I didn’t know what to expect, but the blue skies and road trip tunes set a nice vibe for the weekend ahead.

When this trip was in the early planning stages it was going to be a camping trip, however with just two days till we were due to leave, Max and I hadn’t figured out where we were going and work had more than gotten in the way of adventure planning. Lucky for us though a generous offer of a perfect little beach house meant we could take our time and not worry about much once we got there.

There is very little actually in Cape Paterson. It has a couple of shops/milk bar type things and that’s about it, but close enough to both Inverloch and Wonthaggi which we used as our food and ice-cream hubs.

Despite the perfect weather all that week the weekend became a little cold and so after a pretty chilly fish and chips on the beach we spent the rest of the evening by the fire, where I can happily report I kicked ass at monopoly. The next day was still too cold for swimming but just sunny enough for us to hit the coastal road for some exploring. The road had little turn offs and paths down to beaches and lookouts so we had a great time hunting for non-existent caves, sitting on white sandy beaches and watching birds majestically land on eagles nest rock – a massive rock formation jutting up from the ocean off the coast. 

The weekend over all was a happy blur of sunny walks, red wine by the fire, car sing-along’s, good chats, lots of laughs and a couple of cute pictures – and I wouldn’t have had had it any other way.

TRIP RATING: 5/5 FIRE SIDE GLASSES OF RED

 

week twenty | warburton, vic

Melbourne cup day really sprung up on me out of nowhere this year and so I was pretty happy to invite myself along to a country hike that my wonderful friends Clare and Kym had planned. We set off in the early afternoon with the hopes of a small hike and some fresh air. Lucky for us the mountains are always closer than expected and we arrive in fresh, tiny, perfect, Warburton at around three and were off our short hike to the top of the falls. These waterfalls almost mark the start of what later becomes the Yarra, the huge river that snakes through the middle of Melbourne. I love being out of the city sometimes and it was the perfect way to escape the race that not only stops the nation but sadly the lives of a couple of beautiful horses this year.

The hike was lovely, not to long, quite busy (probably because of the public holiday) and it was a great day for it. Not too hot with a slight breeze coming through the palm trees. It’s all uphill, and I, as always, lamented at my fitness levels but god it was lovely. To top of the beauty of our surrounds was the fact that the three of us were just thrilled to be (FINALLY) on a hike club adventure, a concept that had been developed earlier this year and was part of the process of starting up this blog. 

Once we had finished our hike we headed into town for post hike fresh juice and then Kym took us to a very cool hidden forest that I wont write much about due to it’s top secret location and also because that means it will hopefully get it’s own post soon when I finally get back there.

It was a great day. It was great that hike club truly became a thing, it was great that I could spend some much needed time with Kym and Clare, and it was great that we could get out of town for a bit on a day I don’t overly enjoy. However one of the very greatest things about this trip was that as we were driving back through town on our way home it dawned on me that I had visited Wurburton one time before, over a year ago, on one of the greatest roadtrips of my life with my big sis Carter. What has become an almost legendary tale of our ten hour drive from Melbourne to Canberra is now much more readable on a map – and who knows, maybe one day Carter and I will be back and we can go on a hike and enjoy it as much as Kym, Clare and I did.

5/5 REALLY TALL TREES