Arnhem Land Trip 2018, Days 1 and 2: On the way

We left Canberra, yesterday (Thursday) – on what was in fact a glorious day heading towards 17°C. That was amazing enough, but then we hit Sydney (for our overnight stay in preparation for Friday’s 7.40am flight. If you are a Canberran you know that you do not risk early morning starts in winter. Fog can play havoc with ongoing connections.)

Anyhoo … as I was saying, Sydney. There, the forecast was 25°C, a balmy 9°C above average, though it was down to a mere 23°C by the time we arrived. It certainly made walking to our airport hotel a more pleasant than expected operation – particularly as I had underdressed in preparation for our northern excursion. Who wants to carry unneeded winter clothes around for three weeks? Not me!

So, it was a quiet night at the hotel, broken up by a little excursion for dinner. The options in the vicinity were minimal, including at our hotel, so we ended up at the Stamford’s La Boca Bar and Grill, which features Argentinian food. Len enjoyed his Mixed Grill. My lamb from the fire pit was melt-in-the mouth tender and the meal was perfectly proportioned – a few small-ish chunks of lamb, 2 or 3 potato wedges, a small cobbette of corn, some green garnish, and a tasty chimichurri sauce on the side. Sometimes Southern American food can be heavy-handed on the meat. Not so here. Oh, and I had an Argentinian Pinot Grigio, and Len, surprise surprise, a Tempranillo. The place was really busy – and, as new grandparents, we took a renewed interest in all the dining families. Were all those families flying out the next day, like us? If not, where had they come from given this airport hotel corner of the world?

We spent the rest of the night watching Masterchef – which was set in the gorgeous Nitmiluk National Park, bringing back memories – and then Ash Barty beating Eugene Bouchard at Wimbledon.

I also started my book, indigenous Australian author Marie Munkara’s memoir Of ashes and rivers that run to the sea. I love her storytelling style – and she was born in Arnhem Land …

Then it was Friday – an early start, with the alarm going at 5.30am. All flights went smoothly …

I was bothered by coffee service at the airport. It was served in takeaway cups. “Do you only serve takeaway cups,” I asked – I mean you can’t take your coffee on a plane, can you – “Oh no,” the barista said, “we can do cups as well!” So that’s what l got. And talking coffee, the woman before me had ordered “a flat white and a three-quarter latte.” Is that 3/4 by volume or strength? Presumably the barista knew!

Plane movie: The Bookshop

As the Sydney-Cairns flight takes 3 hours, the service is operated by bigger planes with entertainment service, so I was thrilled to be able to catch up with a film I’ve missed over the last few weeks, The bookshop, based on the novel (on my TBR) by Penelope Fitzgerald.

I enjoyed the movie. Early in the film, the narrator says of the protagonist something along the lines that the protagonist didn’t know the world comprises “the exterminators” and “the exterminated”, with the latter predominating. That sets the tone of the story, and somewhat foreshadows the ending, though it’s only as the film progresses that you realise that many of the exterminators are just weak people controlled by the alpha among them, led in this instance by a woman.

A couple of other tidbits that appealed to me were the Bill Nighy character (Mr Brundish) telling our bookshop owner that he prefers biographies about good people, and novels about nasty people. A little later, our bookshop owner asks Mr Brundish whether he thought the recently published Lolita was a good book. He says it is and that she should sell it. People won’t understand it, he says, but that’s for the best because understanding makes people lazy. As you can see, a film (and novel) for booklovers.

In the end, despite the foreshadowed ending I mentioned above, it is a story about courage – and about the value of and love for books. A perfect film for the flight. (Len, who watched it too, didn’t enjoy it quite so much because of the overall power-and-manipulation theme.)

And then it was Gove/Nhulunbuy

We won’t say much about Nhulunbuy as we’ll have an official introduction, including an indigenous welcome ceremony, tomorrow. We checked into our room, walked around the little town centre which took about 10 mins – after all, Nhulunbuy’s population is only around 4,000 – and booked ourselves into the Maccassan restaurant in the Arnhem Club for dinner. BTW Nhulunbuy, according to Wikipedia, is the sixth largest place in the Northern Territory, which tells you something about the NT. This area was subject to the first indigenous land rights claim – via the famous bark petition – in 1963 with the government’s plan to excise some of Arnhem Land for bauxite mining.

It seems inappropriate to follow that with telling you about our meal, but dinner is indeed what happened at the end of the day, and it was enjoyable. I particularly liked my local barramundi served with a pineapple, beetroot and mint salad. I’m guessing we will be eating a lot of barra in the coming days. I don’t have a problem with that.

Today’s (few) pics …

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