Last lazy day in Darwin

Saturday 25th July 2009
Alexander has also fallen ill and was up during the night regurgitating some of his dinner. Andrea was feeling a little bit better in the morning and so was Ilse, and I'm the only one in good health at the moment. Alexander also turned 10 today but he was in no condition to enjoy is birthday and didn't really want to do anything other than sleep all day.
However, we can't allow small things such as illness interfere with our holiday - "The Show Must Go On".
We drove into Darwin to visit the famous Parap Market where I had some fried food for breakfast but the rest of the family didn't have any brekky at all. Alexander was continuously on the lookout for somewhere to sit down and Andrea was not much better but Ilse got a big boost of energy from the fact that we went to a market. The most interesting thing in this market was the Asian fruit and vegetables, most of which I have never laid eyes on before. I bought a fruit called a Thai Apple which looks nothing like an apple at all. Vicki bought some Jack Fruit which apparently tastes similar to banana. We stocked up on frozen Mangos and a few other fruit and veg and as a final treat I had a Crepe filled with Banana and Nutella and whipped cream on the side. I'm certainly not going hungry just because the rest of the family is off colour.
Our next stop was Joan's place at Nightcliff, where I went for a BBQ last night, so Ilse could also meet Joan and see the nice house on the foreshore. After a short stopover we moved onto the Nightcliff shopping centre to stock up with food for the next few days in Kakadu.
We arrived home around midday and Alexander fell asleep while sitting at the caravan table - see picture 1.
Sometime in the early afternoon we had a little bit of lunch and the kids went into their bunks to rest and recover while watching a DVD - they were even too tired to fight with each other or argue with us.
Later in the afternoon we took a short drive to a special gardening centre just down the road where they they were selling the most amazing Stone ornaments. From Gargoyles to large rocks turned into a letter box they had things I have never seen before. The most impressive was a very well made family of Dinosaurs in real life size - see picture 2.
I was the only one that had dinner tonight so I cooked for myself but later on Ron and Vicki came over and we tasted the Thai Apples and the Jack Fruit and then slaughtered a fresh coconut (from one of the palms in the caravan park) for it's milk and flesh.
On the subject of fruit - today we have learnt, from the ABC gardening talk back, about a fruit with a very bad smell (and taste) that grows around Darwin and we were amazed to learn (from the Horticulturalist on the ABC) that the Aboriginals named this fruit "S#!t Fruit". Apparently it's very healthy but nobody can work out how to make it palatable.

Tomorrow we'll be on the move again, this time to Kakadu National Park heading for Cooinda Lodge Caravan Park.