Six months after arriving in Darwin, the local football season was finally about to start and with the pitches freshly mown and the nets up a local charity or two took the opportunity to hold a fund-raising game at the Gray Football Stadium in Palmerston.
The game fell in a busy weekend. We’d been to the baseball the previous night and spent the following day at the Litchfield National Park. Litchfield is definitely worth a visit if you are in the Darwin area. It’s about an hour’s drive and there are three or four decent waterfalls that have walking trails up to and around them.
One of the waterfalls had a trail that didn’t appear to be as well used as the others and so even on a busy Sunday it was possible to wander around as if we had the park to ourselves.
We didn’t see much in the way of wildlife. The highlight was probably a six-inch long lizard of some sort. I’m rubbish at lizard identification, maybe it’s a gecko. Who knows? Not me, I’m sorry to say.
We also saw plenty of spiders and fortunately for identification purposes there were numerous boards dotted around to give me some assistance. The one in the photo is a female Golden Orb spider.
We saw a few females, often with half a dozen much smaller males sharing the same web. Apparently the fellas were just biding their time and waiting for a chance to get one or more of their legs over, after which they were likely to end up as a post-coital snack. I’m sure we’ve all been in relationships like that at one time or another.
The game at Gray Stadium was quite well attended with probably a hundred or so people turning out to raise awareness and hopefully some funds to be shared between the refugee and asylum seeker charity Football Without Borders and for community facilities for immigrants from Congo.
I only tend to listen to Australian radio if a taxi driver has it on and recently heard a phone-in where just about everyone was complaining that the country ‘was full’ and that immigration should be halted. Talk about pulling up the drawbridge. Back in the real world though, it was heartening to see the people of Darwin doing their bit for immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers.
Football-wise, the standard was mixed. The Congo select had a decent defender at the back who swept up most of the Football Without Borders attacking moves. Elsewhere, there was a mix of triers and a few blokes who looked like they might have played regularly for teams in the past.
The catering was good though and I had a chicken curry that went down well. I don’t recall seeing any beer for sale, but it was more of a family-style occasion with bouncy castles and the like for the kids. I was driving anyway, so it didn’t really matter.
There were a few goals, but I wasn’t counting. If I recall correctly most of them were at the Football Without Borders end. I doubt that the refugees and asylum seekers in their team were too bothered. When your life takes that sort of turn then I imagine you develop a decent sense of perspective.
Tags: Football without Borders, Golden Orb spider, Gray Stadium. Palmerston, Litchfield
Trail of the Lion King 
Leave a Reply