Easter Day

And so to the George Brown Darwin Botanic Gardens. I slightly mis-read/mis-remembered the route so after I'd done my washing, I got there via the Gardens Park Golf Links, The Gardens Road Cemetery and past a sports ground.

The golf course was not as ugly as I have proclaimed recently.was alright really. The cemetery was quite small but I went in as I think you can learn a lot about a place from its churches and graveyards. The thing that struck me here was the age of people. They were young - 30s, 40s, 50s - hardly anyone of a 'good old age'. The cemetery opened in 1919 it must have been a tough life here then. There was a corner for babies with tiny plots and memorials. The item I've linked to says over 800 people were buried there, but there didn't seem to be anything like that names remembered. What I can only assume were burial plots were identified only by a number on a circle of concrete in many cases. There was a group of headstones with the engravings in an oriental script; there were Greek names; descriptions of people's lives and deaths (several described as 'accidentally killed'); one or two for people of aboriginal descent and family names with which I have become familiar through the war stories. A reminder of real people living in truly hard times.

The Botanic Gardens were great. The vegetation round here is lush anyway, but it was like being in the palm houses at Kew except you were outside and it was an enormous scale! Yes, I have taken pictures and some of them are quite alright thank you. I have been wondering how on earth to photograph the amazing dragonflies which feature on Darwin insignia and logos everywhere. Today was the first time one of them cooperated by sitting still long enough. I got one photo but it's not the best. I'll keep trying. Apparently, the first dragonfly appearance is supposed to make the end of the wet season. Oh yeah.....

At the gardens the newly opened coffee place is in a re-located and renovated Wesleyan Church which is the oldest surviving building in Darwin. Pretty amazing to have escaped cyclones and WWII since it was first put up in 1897. Shame they couldn't keep it as a chapel really. The inside is pretty, the outside looks like a simple building of no particular note. Pictures to follow, eventually.

You'd think I'd be getting used to lizards running around by now but I was still taken by surprise when one (relatively large) ran up the wall behind me while I was sitting in a small 'room' at the gardens. Very close to a comedy moment....

Last night, after midnight (letting it all hang out), there were some fireworks over the way but we couldn't work why the loudest ones weren't visible. We found out today that it's because the loudest noises were dynamite being ignited by local Greek people at the Orthodox Church to celebrate Easter. Traditional, allegedly.

Happy birthday to little bruv for today/tomorrow.

Crocodiles next!