Australia day 16 – Hobart to Darwin

We fly out of Darwin at 16.20 having said our farewells to Helen and Adrian.  It is a long and convoluted journey involving three flights:  Hobart to Melbourne 1hour and 15 minutes;  Melbourne to Brisbane 2 hours;  and Brisbane to Darwin 3 hours.  The whole journey is runs improbably smoothly with the exception of the connection at Melbourne where the departure gate is changed twice in the space of half-an-hour and involves us going through security twice.  On the second time, we have to forfeit a set of camping cutlery which has inadvertently found it’s way into the hand luggage.  We arrive 15 minutes late into Darwin at 12.45am;   a remarkable feat in itself given the complexity of our itinerary.  The fact that our luggage does too is nothing short of miraculous particularly as we had only a 45-minute turn around in Brisbane.  The airport shuttle drops us at the transit terminal about 30 metres from our accommodation.  We are staying at Melaleuca on Mitchell – a backpacker hostel right in the centre of the city.  My arm is still very painful and has been aching all day.   Some physio may be necessary it doesn’t improve soon.