Move to Melbourne

We were sad to leave Darwin, it really is a lovely place. Yes its hot, but the public pools are free, the shopping centres have aircon, the sunsets are magic, and the people are open hearted.

We moved to Melbourne where Leigh took a job at La Trobe University and Sunshine settled in to the idea of having another baby. We live in a nice house in Ivanhoe, Leigh rides to work each day.

Living in Darwin now

Ant mound on the way up to Litchfield NP

I took a job at Charles Darwin University, working in the Centre for School Leadership, Learning and Development.

We moved up here in March, and have settled into a very large house in Wanguri, on the North side of Darwin.

Our lounge room

We have native bees in our brickwork!

Stingless, native bees, make tasty honey

Our shipping container arrived a couple of weeks ago, and we've finished unpacking it, and are feeling much more comfortable now. Unfortunately my bike of 13 years was stolen from the front yard within a week of unloading it.

Unloading the container

We live very close to Casuarina Shopping Centre, which has all the mod cons, including a Philippine food store that serves Sunshine her fav, halo halo.

Halo halo at Casuarina Square

Sunshine has scored a job in a local design company, and Eve has found a day care that she likes.

We're all liking Darwin much more than we thought, with lots of swimming pools to visit, including free ones with water slides (Leanyer pools), and amazing national parks to visit. We all visited Litchfield National Park in March, but it was technically still inside the wet season, so swimming was limited. We'll definitely be going back out there, but on days when crowds won't.

Florence Falls, very crowded

Wangi Falls not open for swimming

Yesterday I was invited fishing in Kakadu, and caught 3 barramundi all over 60cm! Kakadu has very impressive rock formations I'd like to explore, and many rock art sights as well. Its a bit more of a committed trip though. It can be done in a day, but multi day if family comes too.

My first barra

The days are cooling off a bit now.. lovely mornings but the days still warm up. We caught the tail end of the wet season, and that was very hot. Not looking forward to the next one! Luckily we have a small pool in our backyard, to help with the cooling off. It will need ice in it on the very hot days though.

Leanyer Pools

Our backyard pool

Climbing in the Northern Territory

http://climbingnt.net.au