13 August - RAAF Open Day – Exercise Pitch Black 2016

13 August 2016 – 182 336

RAAF Open Day – Exercise Pitch Black 2016

Today started with Darwin parkrun, beautiful course along the esplanade, but 30 degrees at 7:30am – and they call this winter!  After showers, washing and car cleaning we headed to RAAF Open Day – there were so many people.  Military personnel and aircraft from Australia, New Zealand, France, Singapore, Thailand, USA and Canada were represented.  I went inside a USA Marines transport plane and was able to go into the cockpit.  Hayden was given posters of all different types of Australian Air Force aircraft, two different plane hatpins, stickers, ruler etc.  The exhibit I found most interesting was the remote controlled robotic bomb disposal units – it was cool!  This afternoon we had a late lunch, then did grocery shopping and general sorting out prior to leaving tomorrow.  We will be heading for Kakadu, hopefully it is not as dry as Litchfield.  It will be interesting to see Kakadu at a different time of year to what I previously have.  I finished the day with a lovely swim to cool down.

29 July - Drew’s Birthday, Top Didj, FA18’s and Thermal Springs

29 July 2016 – 180 947

Drew’s Birthday, Top Didj, FA18’s and Thermal Springs

First up this morning was Top Didj Aboriginal Cultural Experience.
 https://topdidj.com/
This was run by a man named Manuel who grew up in East Arnhem Land living a traditional life.  He talked first about his life, the pluses and minuses of the changes taking place in aboriginal culture, both for himself personally and also for aboriginal people in general.  Sadly, I think he is correct in saying that the aboriginal culture and law he grew up with is dying. Manuel then performed on the didgeridoo and the clap sticks. Then we were taught about the Dalabon method of painting – looking at the technique it is possible to tell where each method comes from, eg dot painting is from the desert, the number of white lines in each group of cross hatching is determined by the tribe the artist belongs to.  The paintings we did were done with acrylic paint on canvas, we did use a small paint brush for the first part in black, but after this we used brushes that were made from the centre of a particular reed.  These were used more by laying on the canvas and pushing and dragging at the same time rather than stroking as with a regular brush. Next up was fire starting using two pieces of softwood and some kindling, Hayden gave it everything he had, but just did not have the muscle power yet. 

The last item on the agenda was spear throwing using a woomera – Hayden was quite good!  From here, we rushed back to the van for Hayden’s appointment to Skype with his class – both he, the class, and the teacher all seemed pretty excited and enjoyed it immensely.  The next Skype session will be a mystery Skype, where the class has to work out where we are.  After lunch we headed to Cutta Cutta Parks, but decided against a tour as from the information available it appeared very similar to the one we did in Tasmania, just warmer.  So, instead we drove to the Katherine Airport and were lucky enough to have a FA-18 Superhornet come in, bank around a full circle and then land, passing about 30m above our heads – it was very very loud and very fast.  We relaxed in the afternoon at Katherine Springs, which originate in the Cutta Cutta Cave system and come out near the Katherine River at 32 degrees Celcius. http://www.ourterritory.com/katherine_nt/hot_springs.htm I cooked up Beef Parmigiana with vegetables for Drew’s birthday dinner, I hope he enjoyed it!  Happy birthday my love!

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