Day 335 – Darwin, NT (14 August)

We had a wonderful time in Darwin and really enjoyed catching up with Murray, Julie, Sam and Monique and their friends.  Actually wouldn’t mind coming back to the NT for a while and to experience a wet season particularly if the Ellis are still here. Unfortunately we didn’t get too far today, as we left town John was unhappy with the way the car was driving, said it was like driving on an ice rink and not stable, so got about 10kms and we turned around and went back to the property we were staying at.  Discovered it was the shockies and John was quite confident he could replace them himself.  We needed rear and front shockies and prices varied quite significantly from $650 to $400 for a set which were the same brand as the originals.  So John spent the rest of day replacing the shock absorbers before going out in the evening with Murray and Sam to a rodeo.  It was a hot and sticky day today about 34.  While the boys were out at the rodeo Julie and I stayed home whilst she babysat Alex and Oscar.  After the boys were in bed Julie and I were sitting outside chatting listening to the neighbours arguing in their backyard when all of a sudden we heard what we thought was a gunshot – we both took off to our respective vans and locking ourselves in phoned respective husbands to tell them to get home.  About 5 gunshots went off before I called the police.  I was worried we had another Martin Bryant on our hands and was too scared to leave the van, Coco was shaking as well.  The police had had another call and were going to check it out.  I was concerned for the boys being in the van on their own and after a while all was quiet and I looked out the window and saw Julie outside the boys van.  Eric (property owner) was also there – he thinks it was probably fire crackers.  Julie and I moved the boys into her bus with Monique, Coco and Jake and we waited feeling safety in numbers.  Eventually the big boys came home and the adventure was over.  Scary stuff though.  It probably was fire crackers but who can tell the difference.