In which Darwin becomes a little less muggy.

I'm back in Alice Springs after a week in Darwin. This time around, I got a first glimpse of the Top End in the dry season. Whilst it was still hot and a little bit muggy, the air was decidedly less thick and there was even a bit of a breeze some days. My Darwin week is always very full on — work usually hectic with lots of meetings (on Friday at 4.00pm I stepped into my seventh meeting for that day) — and to top it off, I had a Criminal Law assessment due during the week. I also discovered I had failed (miserably) my first assessment (ever). Not just a smidgen-under-fifty-per-cent fail, but a walloping great capital 'F' fail.

Nothing says quick fix like eating a dripping mango and butterscotch ice cream next to the sparkling ocean. We spent a lazy Saturday wandering along the jetty and foreshore, spotting fish (well, Peter pointing them out to me) and always on the lookout for a crocodile. Being the paranoid desert dweller I kept imagining that I'd see them in any and every waterway, and even dreamt of crocodiles while I was there.

On Saturday night, we went to the Deck Chair Cinema and sat under the stars to watch the movie 'Tracks' about a woman's camel journey from Alice Springs to the Western Australia coast. (I wrote about the book that inspired the film here.) The movie is wonderfully shot and many of the scenes were just as I had imagined in the book itself. It also helped having the Pitjantjatjara translated quietly next to me by Peter during the scenes with Mr Eddie, the elder from Docker River who accompanied Robyn along a section of the trek.

And now, I'm back home with the dogs and the chooks and the gum trees in dry river beds.