Thurs 25th Aug – I checked out of my hostel and took the airport shuttle to Cairns International Airport for my flight to Darwin. I was hoping to see my friend Rohan from my Sydney Oz Intro group in Darwin, but she text me just as I was at Cairns airport to say she was off to Alice Springs for a job, but in the check-in queue I met a girl called Tiffany who was going to be staying in the same hostel as me in Darwin so at least I had company. When we got to Darwin, we immediately noticed how hot it was! It was 35 degrees! We also noticed how dry and arid it was compared to tropical Queensland where I’d spent the last 3 months. After checking in to Maleluca’s on Mitchell, which Rohan had recommended, Tiffany and I walked to Mindil Beach where they have a sunset market every Thursday and Sunday. This was really nice, with lots of great food stalls, entertainment, and when the sun went down everyone sat on the beach. The sand was brown and really soft. It was a nice surprise as I didn’t realise Darwin had a beach!
Fri 26th Aug – Me and Tiffany wanted to do some shopping so we took a bus to the Casuarina shopping centre. Our trip there was the first time I’d encountered Aborigines. I’d seen them in Cairns but, and this may sound stupid, I didn’t know they were Aborigines. There were a lot of children in the shopping centre on a weekday walking around with no shoes on, and there were a few people begging.
After getting the bus back to town, I rang my friend Joe from Maggie Island and Cairns, as he had been in Darwin a few days. Me, Tiffany, Joe and a friend of his called Gavin went to the wavepool downtown. 
It was so nice to cool off there and we had a lot of fun in the waves! In the evening I went out with Tiffany and some girls from the hostel.
Sat 27th Aug – Today I spent the whole day looking for work. The day before a French girl in my dorm called Geraldine had told me about a farm in Katherine she was going to WWOOF for. I rang them and they said they had space so I arranged to spend a couple of weeks with them from Monday. I rang my friend Victoria (from Fraser Island, and the one I saw randomly in Cape Tribulation) and she said she wanted to come too, so she booked her flight from Cairns to Darwin for the following Wednesday and would join me in Katherine on Thursday.
Sun 28th Aug – As it was my last day in Darwin, I thought I would go to the museum of the Northern Territory. Bill Bryson raved about it in his book “Down Under” and I can see why. It had interesting displays, one was of a real 5 metre crocodile called Sweetheart that had been caught a decade ago!
The best part was an exhibit on Cyclone Tracy which hit Darwin on Christmas Eve in 1974. The exhibit showed a typical living room before the cyclone, and then you walk into a small dark room which played a real sound recording of the cyclone. It was eerie to listen to and gave me goose bumps. When you walk out of the room, you see the same living room from before completely trashed, and the exhibit showed what happened to the town after the cyclone hit. It was a really interesting exhibit. After the museum I walked to Fannie Bay for lunch and had a look around Fannie Bay Gaol. It was too hot and with no shade, I spent only 5 minutes walking around before I had to walk on because it involved too much concentration to read the displays in that heat! On the way back to town, I stopped by the sunset market again.
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