A Top End Extension

In which The Haystack Mountain Hermits have A Series of Extraordinary Events!

Ella in the storage tunnel

Storage Tank Number 5 - 3.8475 million litres!

There was rain on Friday night, which was an extraordinary event in itself! The sky was almost orange and the rain pelted down, which required some adjustment to the tent and the Blunderbuss in the dark.
Saturday morning was a bit cooler after the rain, which made a welcome change. We toured the WW2 oil storage tunnels which were cut by hand into the hillside when the navy realised how vulnerable their above ground storage tanks were to Japanese attack. The war ended just as they were finished, so they were never used. They were opened to the public on the 50th anniversary of their completion, and contained a fascinating collection of war photos.

Pango (with guitar) and Isodore having a Sitdown with us!

We had lunch at "our" spot on the Esplanade.  The plan was to play some music, but were all exhausted so resting and reading under the cool trees was a fine plan. We were about to leave when two Aboriginal men came over, said "Hello Band Family" and one said "I'm going to sitdown with you and make you happy, tell some stories". After a while they introduced themselves - which involved them giving us their Centrelink papers to "prove" their names. They were insistent that we read them, and Isodore thrust his Commonwealth bank card at us for good measure, very proud of "his" bank. A Police paddy wagon drove past and the officers asked us if we were alright, which was slightly disconcerting and upset Pango. He recovered quickly (after flipping them the bird!), played guitar and sang us a song in Walpiri language about the stolen generation, of which he was one. He had been educated in Adelaide and had certainly lived an interesting life as a stockman and rodeo rider, when not in jail! Isodore was harder to understand, but he told us about one of his relatives who escaped from Fannie Bay Gaol. He also proudly read us a page from Dave's Ted Egan book, and became really excited when we told him we were heading to WA. "That is my country" he told us happily.  They insisted on us taking their photographs and I promised to send them copies, care of the Darwin Post Office. It was a fascinating afternoon to say the least!

Sandfly bites are covering all of us!

It was a cool, pleasant evening (as opposed to all the others which had been stinking hot and unpleasant!), apart from all the scratching from sandfly bites which have started tormenting us.

Sunday morning dawned cooler, windy and with low humidity - which was the most pleasant weather we had. Most mornings we started sweating profusely just getting out of bed!

It was another busking day at Mindil Markets, but before we went busking we went out to Leanyer Water Park, where the kids had a blast on the free water slides. It was their lucky day as they had free sausages and helium ballons as well, courtesty of a local politician. Dave and I wrote a Hermits bio for the ABC interview while the kids slid, ate and talked to each other in Chipmunk!

A good day to visit Leanyer Water Park!

Woo hoo!

Jackson and Marcus

We went back to do a bit of rehearsal before busking, but discovered that Jackson's accordion had a sticky key and could not be played. He was gutted and resigned himself to playing the ukulele for the afternoon.

At Mindil, we were given the same pitch, so we started our set at 4 o’clock. We’d only done a couple of songs when an Australian Geographic freelancer and her partner asked to interview us for an up-coming issue about travellers on Highway One. We chatted for half an hour or so and they took some photos as we started to busk again. Poor Jackson really missed his accordion as he was photographed playing Ella's pink ukulele! We will probably be in the December edition of Australian Geographic. 

On Monday we had to be in at the ABC studios at 12:30 for a sound check, so apart from me doing 5 loads of washing, the morning was spent rehearsing our songs and pretending to be cool, calm and collected so the kids wouldn’t get nervous!

Our rehearsal was OK but the time disappeared very quickly and in no time at all the ON AIR sign lit up and we went out to wait for Richard Margetson to start his show and introduce us. The very last thing he said before we went in was announcing that Ros Lawrence had just won the C1 teams event in Slovakia. She also grew up in the shadow of Haystack Mountain, so that was a moment of pure synchronicity! Our interview was very relaxed and went well, we played our two songs live to air and everyone was on a high when it was over. We enjoyed victory icecreams  at an old fashioned Soda Shop (which seemed appropriate!) in the city before returning to camp and another load of washing!

ABC Darwin studio - Richard Margetson and the Hermits!

Stay tuned ...