Waterfrontabulous

I've been writing a lot about crocodiles, poisonous sea creatures and risks-to-life-and-limb if you go into the water, but there is actually a swimmable 'beach' in Darwin. And that, dear reader, is at the Waterfront.

Okay, it's an artificial beach. But it's got real sea sand and real sea water. And the Waterfront is a lot of fun generally. It has a constant holiday vibe, with open-air restaurants, bars, water-side loungers, children's playground and fun water stuff.

The Recreation Lagoon is free and is patrolled by lifeguards every day. The lagoon is separated from Darwin Harbour by a seawall, but sea water comes through fine mesh screens so it's continually refreshed. The mesh stops stingers and other unpleasant things coming in. In the lagoon are fish, algae and (apparently) some sort of benevolent jellyfish that keep the ecosystem balanced. But we've never seen the jellyfish.

We love swimming in the lagoon. In our first months in Darwin, the temperature of the water was very, very warm. We called the lagoon 'the soup' — not because it was thick and lumpy, but because it was warm. By March the water temperature had cooled down a bit and we called it 'the bath'. Now the seawater temperature has cooled down even more, but it is still much warmer than the frigid temperature of the hotel pool. (It's almost midwinter. While the daily temperature is still 32 degrees, the outdoor hotel pool temperature reflects the drop at night to about 20 degrees. The water is freezing.) So after work, at 4.30pm, we go to the Waterfront to swim. The only time we swim in the hotel pool is on Saturday, after we've cycled, when our body temperature is so high that we could swim in the Arctic.

See that large inflatable playground in the water? The yellow, green and blue things? That's the Aquapark. Entry is $20 per hour. Jumping off those inflatables looks exhilarating but climbing up in the first place? Don't think so.

Also in the Waterfront is the Wave Pool. This costs $7 entry for the whole day. One weekend, we spent a marvellous day bobbing on the waves. Tubes and floaties are provided, but I used my trusty yellow inflatable tube that I bought in Waikiki for US$3.99. (I've been lugging it around for years as I knew it would come in handy again one day!) At the end of the day I was happy, if mildly seasick.

The Waterfront is the venue for festivals of all kinds, such as the Nepal Festival this weekend. A young Nepalese-Australian colleague at work told me that there are about 5,000 Nepalese in the Territory. That's quite large, given that the NT population is 245,000 in total (150,000 in Darwin). I know from work that children of 120 nationalities are enrolled in NT schools. But then again, the percentage of people in Australia as a whole who were born outside of Australia has risen to 30%, so really Darwin is just a microcosm of Australia.

I've included just a few photos from the Nepal Festival — sadly I didn't take any of the wonderful food stalls or singing and dancing — but I will include a little video from the Thailand Festival in the Waterfront a month or so ago.