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Kiting NT .. or .. Marty's Corner


JKS

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The 2 months I have been a 'local' have had a nice seabreeze most every afternoon, but only a light one (8 - 15 as I say)

There is a bit of a kite surfing crew up there .. so if they can surf I sure as s*#t can buggy ... that's what I'll keep telling myself ..lol

As for the cyclones, I am convinced I will make good of the lead up and perhaps the aftermath but not the during :eek:

Optimism is a precious gift ;)

Marty

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Trip was smooth as Simon ... unlike the landing in Brisbane last week :eek:

What stunned me was getting out of the plane @ 1.30 am on Monday morning and it was 27 deg :heat: bugger me ... it was so warm for that time of the morning, I just laughed to myself.... then sighed. It was cloudy @ 7am when I woke up and the day was really really humid. I brought up the first kite and when I unpacked it Monday night I noticed it was still soaking wet so I laid it out on the veranda. I checked it 3 hours later and due to deliquescence (salt absorbing moisture from humid air) the bloody thing was wetter than when I first laid it out :mad:

The ONLY way to dry it was bring it into the unit, close all the windows and turn the air conditioner on overnight.

Got some learning to do here dude ....

Marty

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I checked the tides for when I am back ... which will hopefully be around the weekend of the 26th Sep through to the 4th of oct.

Low creeps from 8 am on the 26th moving forward about one hour each day to 3.30 by the 4th which is made all the better seeing its the bigger of the tides :clapping:

And NO, it wasn't my Panch :P ... it was my Ripper .. which is bigger than your house :upyours:

Marty

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Hey Mr Wolf ... Air con is split and runs 24/7. It's more like a life support system than a convenience here :heat:

Here is a time laps I found of the 'build up' in humidity ... this was taken 2 days ago (sep 9th) !

Not sure what size house ... one that wont send me broke I guess :o Lucky for me I know how to polish a turd.

With any luck I will sneak down to the mighty 'Dundee' beach on Sunday :D and if I do I will take many many pics. The only drama is the tide will be up about 3 or 4 meters by the time I get to wander through .... should give some indication how much real estate 'may' be available on a BIG low :D

I got a Midge warning newsletter in my e-mail today :eek: What sort of a mad house requires you to get midge warnings :crybaby:

Marty :hunter:

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Well .... after working 50 million hours last week for a cause that I akin to being a medical officer at a boxing match. I decided it was time to cruise the town again and ... avalukearound :good:

Work was done ... forgotten about (as best you can) the shopping was done ... the washing was done ... even vacuumed the unit and mopped the bugger out. Nice to have things clean :D ... anyway, the floor was wet, so I had to go out to let it dry (that's my story and I'm sticking to it)

Printed out a map and off I went ... I started by cruising some of the more 'opulent' suburbs (ya may as well start at the top) ... lol ... so Fannie Bay was the first to topple over, boy there are some ... hmmm ... pretty nice houses here ! ... I went around to East point and got a pretty cool view of Darwin City from across the water. I don't thing the bay has a name but basically you can see Mindi Beach reserve from here (fuggin LOVELY)

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Even the termites love it :ok:

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I didn't take a photo :punish: (will definitely get one) but out on east point we passed one of the Anti Aircraft sites .... well ... funny how you can be all happy happy joy joy touristy and then you get a good slap in the face of why/how we are still all enjoying this country. Sitting quietly ... unassumingly ... without complaint is a Anti Aircraft station (gun removed). The goosebumps that crept my skin were very powerful .. the lump in my throat was instant. I haven't felt that guilty for forgetting since I was in the war museum in Canberra in about 1999. The photo I should have got and WILL get will describe it far better than I ever can, flat ground facing the sea .... an earth mound .. overgrown with grass about 2 meters high, round with a flat top ... maybe 10 meters wide. A thick gnarled concrete structure poking out the front, some small slots for vision/defense ? and (what goose bumped me) piles of sandbags still strategically placed around the area !! Like tey just walked away ... and everyone silently agreed NOT to disturb it. Powerful ....

I drove off feeling very respectful for those that had fallen ...

I headed north and after a few twists and turns ... even with a map managed to get VERY lost :o befor you know it ... you are in NO GOOD land

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I am still to get a sense of direction here ... because I am so much farther North than I have ever been I have lost my ability to pick NSEW in relation to the sun ... and it's fuggin with my head :fool:

Anyhew .... eventually .... following my gut instinct .... I found something familiar ... (Ya CAN'T ever forget a gutter like that)

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Then I found ... them :D 18 of em :D

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Houston .... we have contact.

Marty

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Never expected to be the lone ranger Terry (Just act like him) ...lol ...

I do believe I will be the LONE buggy rider though, which is really really confusing as the beaches ere are beyond WICKED :confused:

Posted on the sign on the left of the 2 you can just see in the second last photo are details as to where/how a blow carting trial is being done + the phone number of the council office to call (this weeks mission) so assuming I am to be classifies as a blow cart (shudder) ... it's all falling into place. I also got the contact details for the local kite fence ... so he is on my list this week also

I still haven't hear from Kneebuster yet ... starting to thing he's not real :eek:

I suspect once these lot start to see me fagging about on the Cougar there might just be a little land kiting garden begin to grow in the NT.... but the end of the day, I am such an anti social bastard ... I prefer the space :drinks:

Marty

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Marty the only time you are anti social is when the winds up . Even then you scream past yelling obsentities and laughing . Mate get that cougar out and go for a few fangs up and down the beach and you'll have em eating out of your hand . They're a crazy bunch of bastards up there , they have to be , so anything a bit different , they'll have a go . Nice looking beaches , go hard my boy . :friends:

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Dit dit dit dot dot dit dit dit dit ... update update update

I have to start this post by saying ... I love my country, despise my system and MISS my family :sorry:

After doing 50 million hours last week for a project that the media flogs to death EVERY FUGGING SECOND (In the NT), the opposition has doomed, the client despises and destroys, and the environment doesn't suit, I decided ... I NEED to blow off some steam :wall2:

Stuck in a foreign land, 4000 km from home ... I am lost on the weekend, if there is no work to distract you ... your mind wanders. You miss home, you wonder 'what they are doing' ... you wish you were there .... You pace.

You forget about important things ... and unimportant things get misunderstood.

You have everything cleaned.

The dishes are done.

The shopping is done.

The floors are cleaned ... even the washing machine has a clean lint filter !

What to do ... what would YOU do ....

With NO other people who 'understand' what a kite is ... unable to watch ANY more Jackass videos with my roomies (Note last photo) I decided it was time !

Time to borrow a company 4wd and venture forward into the lasting minutes of the day.

(Reading the paper was crap) This is no good I thought to myself ...weekends are for following ones nose, not wasting time, not nodding off ... "COM'ON you pack of bums" I yelled to my roomies .. but only one would come and wander ... one was all I needed :D

We drove back to Casurina beach (Remember that place Barrie :P ) the WIDEST beach attached to ANY city I know of .. with the MOST consistent (light) winds on the planet. Clockwork ! anyhew .... wandering back to 'Kite Beach' I saw the usual 20 cars parked around the surf club ... as we walked past the club with it's partially renovated everything I saw what I was hoping to see ...

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The grass is BEYOND green ... the beer was cold and the yokels were friendly. Introducing myself to a few more of the crew we spoke about what kites were best .. the prevailing winds, stingers, crocks, tides ... 30 mins of yabbering has lead me to realize ... up here they don't call em Kite Buggies ... the call em Blowcarts ... heh heh heh .... 'might take me a little while to fit' in I thought to myself. At least the Council have 'officially' set an area set aside ...

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Watching the kites being launched as the 'clockwork' wind ventured in I spotted a couple of fellas a wee way up the beach that 'seemed' to be doing it tough ... long story short. Jason ... you owe me buddy :drinks: another 20 mins and we would be either down one Alex or one kite !

(If you read this it was real good to meet you Alex, thanks for the fly buddy and cheers for your ears) 1 1/2 hours later ... Alex was feeling a little more in control.

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Anyone with a kite obsession that has been missing out will know that any fly is a good fly ....

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Not to be satisfied with this being the days events I mustered my single volunteer back into the car, called the boring 'roomies' on the trip back and informed them that they were being picked up and coming on a 'safety in numbers' drive to the potentially 'kite buggy legendary' Dundee Beach. We loaded up on water, maps, gps, spare clothes, a pile of junk mail and a heap of adventurous attitude. Off we went ... past the roadside bargains ... past the dusty paddocks ... the towering termite nests .. the keep out/get shot signs .. and into the outback. Red dust .. blackboys and low scrub ... NO hills and the same shit for 160 km. The view never changes ... only the odometer and the fuel gauge. 165 km later we wandered into 'Dundee lodge' . I don't know if this little town was where 'he' got his name from, but going by tee sights we saw ... I reckon it was used for inspiration.

After counter lunch at the Dundee Lodge (Very nice Donga with a Very nice tent outside) I told the boys ... I wanna see the beach to the south. They Gasped .. (If you knew how remote we were /how rough the roads were/and how dry and barren it was ... you would prolly agree) but to me ... I was here ... and 'it' was down there .. plus it was safety in numbers ... so we went onward (well actually first I drove off without them laughing my head off .... and then turned around and picked them up :itwasme: )

The GPS had NO FUGGIN IDEA where we were ... it was a bit 'Wolf creek' in a way .... all we had to go by was a 'sense' of where the ocean was, the Sun and a gut feeling ... another 30 km of driving red dust cut through kill ya scrub where you cant see more than 50 meters in ANY direction and there she was...... Dundee Beach :eek:

The most isolated 'have a go at me ya crunt' beach I have ever seen. Looking at the scallops in the cliffs and the cracks across the top where we stood I could see this place did not give a flying fug weather I was there or not ... EVER ! The sand/coral/rubble down below was Grey ... the seas that had eaten her away have been HUGE ... a place that only Cyclones would bother ... but then bother they would.

I am really not sure if I found 'exactly' the beach I was looking for ... but we were SO far off the beaten track, all my traveling companions had that 'Were lost aren't we' look in their eyes so I decided not to venture any further south .. another day another time, the beach we did find was fantastically remote and spectacular ... but no :( good :( for :( kite :( bugy :( riding ....

It was full of Arseholes :crybaby:

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We made it back to Darwin ... made dinner ... then set off fireworks in the unit :laugh3::laugh2::help::laugh1::tease:

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Ironic how you can have a Sunday to remember and a Monday you wish you could forget :russian_roulette:

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Good to see you finally got a kite fix while you were up there Marty but did you have to pick the PINK kite :D

I have to say that bunch of guys you call roomies look like a pack of arse holes :rofl: but at least you got their best side.

Now keep repeating to yourself It's a Blo-Kart It's a Blo-Kart. :derisive:

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Heh heh eh ... funny crunts :upyours:

The pink kite WAS NOT MINE .... I was holding it for a friend :o What sort of a shop would sell a pink kite anyhew :dontknow: Must be from down south :blind:

I didn't give a hootster, twas nice to have a fly (even if it was only static)

Baz ....

I was actually licking it 'prior' to inspections :eek:

What a place !! You been there Barrie ?

Dave .. Not sure if I should bring the Wife n' kiddies there .. lol ... so far it has always been empty (both areas)

Marty

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Are you asking me if I have been to a prostate examination or Dundee beach? Both acctually.. But only one was enjoyable..

I have friends who have property at Dundee, and I have been lost out that way a few times on my mudda bike while exploring. Nothing worse than filling ya engine with muddy water in the middle of no where ...

Cheers,

Barrie :D

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Struck me as a VERY easy and unforgiving land to get lost in ... no hills .. no view ... no landmarks .. no one driving past !

Until you find that coastline there must be 100's if not 1000's of square km that look IDENTICAL.

I am still struggling with my sense of direction, being so far north the Sun is in a different spot ... I have bother judging NSEW, I have bother judging the time of day. It's weird :confused:

The other thing that throws me is the sea is to the West ... now that does not compute :dontknow:

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