LindyBear

Okay, alright I haven’t blogged in a while but honestly it feels like groundhog day around here. I don’t really have much interesting news but I’ll do my best…….. Still totally on the work buzz and swinging between really hating it and laughing through it. Still though it isn’t for that much longer and then we’re back on the road, thank god because doing nothing is an absolute killer for me. I’ve been climbing the walls this week. I think I probably have Kate driven demented! So apologies to Kate and thanks missus for putting up with me 🙂 We’re leaving Darwin towards the end of November and flying to Cairns where our road trip all the way to Sydney begins. We’re renting a car and will drive about 2800 kilometres(!) in just under a month. We’re planning to roll into Sydney just before Christmas.

In the meantime, we try to come up with things to break up the weeks and the first was Kate’s 30th birthday.

We had good fun that night and followed it up on her actual birthday with a lovely dinner in a funky jazz club restaurant called Nirvana where I got to eat noodly, peanuty Pad Thai again – yum!! It had been in Thailand the last time I had it. We’re usually off on a sunday so we head out after work on saturday night and we’ve have some good nights, including one with Kate’s work crew.

We also headed to Katherine Gorge last week and it was just lovely. We went on a 2 hour cruise and got a swim in too which was great.

 Some of the scenery is just out of this world. Here’s something you don’t get to see every day….

Other than that there isn’t a whole lot else to report. I’m still working in the hotel restaurant cooking. I’m working with an executive chef from the Phillipines who is a great laugh and we have a lot of fun working together. The restaurant does “$5 dollar Friday” which means you can load up your plate all for the bargain price of $5. I tried to warn Janz that the “savages” (oh and they are believe me!!) come in their droves on a friday and basically decimate the place. I don’t think he took me seriously the first week but the second week he said “okay NOW I’m ready for the savages!!!” Honestly these people are lunatics. We serve buffet and have 8 options at any one time and they can clear it in ten minutes!!! We usually serve 28 trays of food or the equivalent of 400 normal sized dinners (to roughly 250 people!) on a friday!!!! Some people (and it’s the same culprits every week) try to come back for seconds even though you are meant to pay per plate. They also get pretty picky and say things like “and where’s the fish?” or “I’m going to get my money’s worth here” OF COURSE YOU’RE GOING TO GET YOUR MONEY’S WORTH – IT’S $5!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In general though, I can’t get over how much they eat, we get people who eat a full hot breakfast, yogurt & fruit, pastries and then cereal and toast. Now I have a hefty appetite but dear god I could never eat all of that in one go!!! WHERE DO THEY PUT IT????? Probably in their pockets or something 🙂

So for the last few days we have this one particular woman in for lunch and I’ve NEVER seen so much food being consumed by one person in one sitting. Her plate was stacked really tall and then she puts napkins on her tray for her salad because it won’t fit on the plate. Honestly we’ve all been mesmerised by her. By the end of it she’s sweating and wiping her forehead. The first day Janz had a “tree” made out of a celery stick – as a garnish on the tray of food – and yes you guessed it, she ate it!!!! I took a picture of her plate today but she arrived late and must of been off form because this is only about two thirds of her usual portion. No kidding!!!

The plate is usually waaaay more stacked, it literally takes her ten minutes to load up! It’s been a very busy week with the “savages”, particularly for breakfast. On a separate note, we had Mark Cagney from TV3’s Ireland AM this week for breakfast, they must be filming a piece on the Northern Territory we reckon.

It’s fun cooking though for the most part, my latest obsession is the breakfast fruit platter, so if you ever wish to make a fruit turtle, this is how you do it. First get a watermelon or a turtle 🙂 , take off his skin and give him legs and a tail…..

Then put his head on and make him pretty….

Okay maybe he’s not massively turtle-like but use your imagination!!!!!!

Anyway I promised myself I wouldn’t write about work but there you go. I guess it’s pretty much all we do. The blogs will hopefully get somewhat more interesting when we get on the move again.

More photos as usual on http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157607874219426/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157608501167406/

P.S. I know I wrote way too much again, need to get back on the wagon 🙂

Well the day finally dawned, and by that day I mean Sunday the 21st September – the very last and final day of my twenties. Doesn’t time just fly by waaaay too quickly? As many of you know I had this trip planned for a long while and always maintained that I wouldn’t mind turning thirty because I’d be away backpacking and living the life of a 20 year old. I was wrong. Dear god, I don’t think I could have taken it any worse!! All was going to plan until the first day of September and from then on every time I saw, wrote or heard the date, mild to moderate panic set in, temporarily but steadily getting worse every day. Am I being overly dramatic? Of course I am 🙂

September 22nd at 09.15, if I remember what my mammy said correctly, was when I was born. This year it fell on a monday but due to working on the tuesday we decided to head out on Sunday night, which for me was quite appropriate because I was commiserating the end of my twenties while the people around me were celebrating the beginning of my thirties 🙂 Had a great night. Kate went to great lengths throwing a pre-pub party in our apartment and it was just lovely so many, many thanks to her. Steve was over for a week also and it was really nice to have someone from home around for my big (dreaded) day. I also received some lovely cards, texts and pressies from home so many thanks to those folks also.

And now it’s done. I’m 30. Boo to it. No going back. I don’t feel 30 but I definitely look it with all these hours I’m working. I must be old though because a couple of the younger girls at work, who’ve been there for months, ask me what they should be doing!!! At my night job in the Italian restaurant, I asked my boss should I ask a couple of girls for identification as they were ordering wine and he said “come on Linda, they’re fine” Hmmmmm I still maintain they looked about 15!

So, as I said, Steve was around for the week and I took some time off work. We headed to Crocosaurus which is right in the middle of Darwin’s Central Business District. It has loads of geckos, snakes, long neck turtles and all kinds of crocs to look at.

Unfortuntately my camera died so I didn’t get any pics of crocs. Will have to make a return journey but it was a pretty cool place. We also went to see some jumping crocs. It was pretty much the same as when myself and Kate saw them as part of our Kakadu trip. This time though at the very end of the cruise two crocs got out of the water and on to the bank of the river and it was pretty cool to see them out of the water sizing each other up!!

Scary, eh?

Myself, Steve, Kate, Alex and Shane also rented a car and headed off to Litchfield National Park for the day. Our first stop was to see the magnetic termite mounds which are really amazing….

….we saw a few of these on our way to Kakadu previously. The amazing thing is the termites build these to align perfectly north to south to help them cope with the extreme weather conditions. It looks like a graveyard, huh?

We cooled off with a swim at Buley Rockhole afterwards. It was pretty busy there, lots of tourists at the weekend I guess but still lovely and refreshing being in the water.

We also went to see Tolmer Falls where you can’t swim so it’s such a tease to look at the really inviting water. These falls are almost drying up as we are coming to the very end of the dry season in the Northern Territory. It’s hard to imagine what they might be like by the end of the wet season but apparently it’s impressive and really loud!!!

We got a lot of swimming in that day though at Florence Falls and Wangi Falls…..

…..it’s a real treat to be in the water as you pretty much can’t swim in the Northern Territory due to either crocs or killer box jellyfish!!!

Anyhoo that’s the scoop for now.

More photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157607597677682/  http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157607661338444/and http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157607874171226/