Mandorah

Wednesday 29th August

We should have been heading for Kakadu today, but after the Kaka-don't comment at Buley Rockhole yesterday (well, that and the thought of another long drive) we've opted to stay on in Darwin for an extra night and do the things we haven't had time for with chopperdoc flying overseas twice at the weekend.

You can take a fastcat across the water from Darwin to a beach resort called Mandorah at the tip of the Cox Penninsula. It would take hours and hours to drive between the two places but the boat only takes twenty minutes and the views are great (including the view into the crystal clear water, which is teeming with fish like this one). And when you get to the other side there's the promise of pristine beaches and a holiday resort with a massive swimming pool and beach bistro, which seemed just the ticket and well worth the $20 each for the price of the return crossing.

And then we saw the place, or rather, we saw a flat-roofed building that looked like the Pontins holiday camp at Southport and thought that couldn't possibly be the resort we'd been promised. True, the swimming pool was big, but the loungers around it literally fell to pieces when you touched them and the bistro was the only bistro I've ever come across that had a punchbag hanging in the centre of the room; fine if you want deep fried everything and you're not fussy whether there's any paper in the toilets (or just not fussy full stop).

Still, the beach was pristine, though the sand was the hottest sand I've ever tried to walk on, so it was impossible to actually sit there (see the bottom photo for the view back across the water to Darwin and the sight of an unlikely beachomber and his bike). We stuck it out and got chatting to a couple from Noosa who'd sold their house and set off around Australia while she was pregnant with their second child, a baby girl they've called Pearl because she was born in Broome (where they grow pearls). Their elder child, a boy called Jengo, became Ella's new boyfriend for the afternoon and they had a great time chasing each other through the complex, which kind of made up for it being even worse than the Crossroads Motel.