more of darwin

this guy was watching us from our Errol's neighbour compound.

Darwin botanical garden. notice this 2 trees were fallen some time but they still survive.

At night market.

Thanks to Yuki and Gigi from Hong Kong, they brought Samantha a very nice cake.

The Bilbao tree in Darwin.

Don’t border to go to big motorcycle shop in Australia to get something done on yours, instead, they will try to sell you a new bike. Remember I wanted a chain guard in Alice Springs and how the guys at the shop treated me? These are the shops that sell new bike clothing, new Harley, chromed parts. I went to the biggest bike store in Darwin. It was the Harley type of shop but they also sell many other accessories. I asked for a second hand crate for Hope Too and that guy quoted me a$250! Usually, in many parts of the world, the crate would be free because it came with the new bike. When they sell the new bike they have to find ways to throw away the crate. After knowing the price, they asked me if I wanted to know how much is it to put the bike in and to transport to the shipping company. No thanks. I browsed around, looking for a chain guard. The guy in-charged was kind enough to take an effort to do some measurement and research. I appreciated his work although he did not have any suitable chain guard for XRV750. I checked with him about other bike shops around and he recommended me to

Darwin Motorcycle Wreckers
Unit 2/1 Durand Court, Coconut Grove, NT 0810
Tel: (08) 89480995

S12 24.122
E130 51.194

It was situated in an industrial area where we found it by chance. There were some old bikes out side this rusty and dark workshop. There was a guy working on a bike when I approached. He was the kind of big beard man and wasn’t the friendliest person anyone would meet. After hearing my problem, he showed me all his baskets of chain guard he had and I have to help myself. He continued back to his work. Cool! There were so many used chain guard that I could fit on Hope Too. I noticed that although his workshop is not clean but all the used parts were categorized properly. It was because when I wanted to pay him for some screws, he showed me the segment where he put all the old screws and it was free. Then I realized that he always had a place for something so that it would be easy to find, just like an old library. Highly recommended for repairs and special motorcycle parts and helpful!

Bye Hope Too...

It was Sam’s birthday, a day before we have to leave for Timor Leste. It wasn’t a fancy cake that she had but it’s about blowing the candles in the dark with some nice friends (and me) around. Hey, where’s her birthday present?

Rather than spending time at the World Heritage of the MUST VISIT Kakadu national park, we spend most of our last days in Australia with Errol and Serene, which was really worth.

Errol was my direct commander when I was serving 2 years of national service (NS). From the times together, I guess Errol had learned to be much smarter because he had to deal with a person like me. I remembered every time I got into trouble, he would not use the rank to press me down but to counsel me. Sometimes he had to do special ideas just to make his superior happy because he was given the instruction from his superior to punish us. He always had new and strange ideas where the ‘straight’ people in NS could not accept. Luckily I didn’t belong to the ‘straight’ type of people in NS.

After the two years full time NS, we went our separated ways into our real struggling lives.

It was Adrian Low, from Sydney that updated us that Errol was in Darwin. I was so happy to meet Errol again and pleased to introduce Sam as my life time partner, my wife, to him because he did not attend our wedding.

Errol and his wife, Serene, lived a humble life in Darwin and most of the times during the 10 days stay, he was around with us and droved us around to show us everything that we wanted to see, to buy and do in Darwin. He tried to offer everything he could to us. We always had endless topic to discuss over the table and I would be the one hinting to go to sleep first. I had never been so close to him with out this RTW trip and got to know him better, other than being my commander.

Sam and I would rate Errol as the UNESCO World Heritage of a MUST VISIT person in Australia rather than the Kakadu alibaba thing.

Errol enlighten me in my many queries I had. He would be able to be my Buddha.

My Buddha?

That would be a person, an article, a movie or anything that would enlighten me from my query.

We had a good time in Australia with Errol’s presence. Sam and I were really lucky as compared with other travelers.

I am now writing this in Timor Leste. I am more eager to share with you the love we had over this country.

Long time that we have not have Laksa... thanks to Errol and Serene bringing us to the local market.

Errol making Hokkien mee for us.

last days in Australia, we had some grill in case we miss the food here.