My preconception of Darwin was a dusty hick town, full of dusty men drinking beer in dusty outback pubs. It is not that at all. It is a modern town, which had to be rebuilt twice in the previous century. Once after it was bombed by the Japanese in WWII and again in 1987 after it was destroyed by cyclone Tracy.

We blew our budget and stayed in a hotel. Our room was huge and modern. The bed was bigger than our entire sleeping quarters for the last 3 months. Within 5 minutes we had our clothes spread from one end of the room to the other.

The Treetops restaurant at the hotel is supposed to be very popular with the locals and everyone checking in seemed to be booking dinner there. We hopped on the bandwagon and booked dinner as well. When we rocked up for dinner we had a quick look at the menu. It was a fussy menu that used words like “jus” and “confit”. My experience of eating at these places is that the food is ok. I think when you are spending over $100 for a meal; you’d like it to be better than “just ok”. So we cancelled our table and headed out on the town.

We found Mitchell St, which seemed to be the main street for bars and restaurants. Darwin was buzzing. The open-air bars were spilling over with Friday night after work drinkers. The bars had no inside area, just a roof, no sides. It would be fantastic to live somewhere you could rely on the weather being warm all year round.

We found a Thai rooftop restaurant, which also had only a roof, no sides. It also had an outdoor area for smokers. It had a really good vibe. We had an incredible meal, and for half the price that pretentious hotel was going to cost.

That was day one.