Darwin

Darwin

A very long day was ahead of us when we left Bumbang Ku.  We left the hotel by boat at 8.30am and dropped off Brad (part owner of the deluxe units) and his friend Sonny off at the surfing spot along the way. A car and driver were waiting for us in Gerupuk.  This was to take us by the Mataram office of Nunung, where we could settle our hotel bill by visa card, and then on the the domestic airport.  We had booked a flight from Mataram to Denpasar, from where we could take our Jetstar plane to Darwin.

Despite all the seeming chaos in Indonesia, this all happened very smoothly and few glitches.  The flights were all on time, the driver was there to meet us, (even though the message to him wasn't clear; - he had arrived by road to the hotel. So while we had breakfast he drove to Gerupuk, it would have taken an hour by road, only fifteen minutes by boat) the office was open and the domestic plane very new and therefore safe.

We arrived in Darwin at 10.30pm, where we checked in to a nearby motel for the night.  We decided that we would deal with the car and a possible flat tyre in the morning.  It is worth noting that the hotel provided free transfers to and from the airport and, we discovered, too late, cheap long-term car parking.

The next morning, on arrival at the long term airport car park, we did indeed have a slow leaking rear tyre.  So another trip to the tyre centre was in order.  The tyre was leaking because somewhere along our travels, we had pierced the side wall.  Was this after the repair in Katherine or before? We have no idea. It was illegal for the tyre centre to repair this sort of puncture as the structure of the tyre had now been compromised.  Fortunately for us, they had an identical Michelin tyre with which to replace it.  This was amazing, because these tyres are very difficult to procure!