But apart from that it's been a good day. Last night, Rosie invited me to join her and new room-mate on a trip to the cinema today. Given that pretty much everything was going to be shut it seemed like a good idea. In the end, four ladies of an age (or thereabouts) - two Aussies, a Pom and a Yank - went to see "The Other Woman". I think the lead actress was Cameron Diaz. It was very a much a chick flick but good and funny, with the traditional syrupy ending. Now, if it had been made for me to see when I was here last time, it would have been the perfect film.....
As if me going to a chick flick wasn't bad enough, I then turned down the offer of 'celebrating' Good Friday with champagne and cheese! I thought that would be the day written off (the film ended a little after 2). So I wandered back into town, went past the Tree of Knowledge (a banyan), settled on the grass for a while and looked at maps and thought about making some plans. The tree is by the library and I had noticed two things: a huddle of people sitting outside tapping away at their keypads and, a big sign saying free wifi! So I went back, took some photos of things nearby and went to find the interweb. Quite soon, it started to rain. It had been trying earlier. Then it started RAINING. That was fun. I moved up a bench to join the other surfer slightly more sheltered from the deluge (yes I was going to say Sheltered from the Storm but that means something else to some of you). It's quite nice being outside watching the rain but not being in it.
A curious thing happened. There was some clanging. Must be a church or chapel nearby and there was a potential building in sight. After all this is one of the holiest days of the year. It kept going. Became more tuneful. I laughed, as did my companion. Finally, it clicked. The sculptures I had been photographing were in fact series of bells. The HMS Beagle Ship Bell Chime, commissioned in 2009 to celebrate 200 years since the birth of Charles Darwin. There are 11 bells, 10 with a bird atop, the other with the Beagle itself. Brilliant!
I finally moved on and pottered further. I fancied a coffee (and cake of course) but couldn't really find anywhere. I had in mind to find a place called Frog Hollow, mainly for the name :-) Walking along fairly deserted streets, trying not to look the lost tourist, I heard shrieking in a tree overhead. Aha! Immediately, I saw bats having an argument and stopped to get my camera out, thus reinforcing the lost tourist image after all. It was fabulous. I love those little, or big, flying mammals and here they were on a street corner, not even in a park. Nice new camera did me proud and I have the most lovely bat picture to show you. One day. If. When. I can get the camera, the ipad, google+, blogger and possibly the world to talk to each other over super-slow YHA wifi. I may have to go back to the library! But if you can wait, it's gorgeous! If you can't, go to twitter and follow someone called @runningwomble and you'll be able to see it there.
I did find more bats along the way and attempted to take pictures of them flying, but I'm not the best photographer.
Back at the ranch, sorry YHA, my stalker caught up with me again. I tried to make use of him, quizzing him over the intricacies of ipad folders. His answer didn't work. Pah. You see, the trouble isssss, photos from the camera end up in a folder called Imports or Latest import. Blogger now insists that it can only access photos in certain ways, and directly from your ipad is not one of them. So I'm supposed to use Google+, but that only seems to look at Camera Roll (sorry if this is boring you but I'm hoping someone can help), so it's not updating with my wonderful bat picture. Anyone who suggests getting a bat phone loses straight away.
Tomorrow, I'm going to a local market and hopefully seeing some other stuff. Monday will be crocodile day. And, if I can get it booked, Tuesday I'll be off on a tour to Kakadu.
<phew>
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