Alfonsino's

John’s niece, Summer, invited us to camp on their five acre block in Howard Springs in Darwin which we really appreciated. She lives there with her partner, Stewart and their two little girls, Nellie and Quinn. Summer’s mum Maureen (John’s sister) also lives with them. So we were looking forward to catching up with them for a few days and also using their place as a base from which to explore Darwin. As it turned out they were flying to Perth the following week for a holiday so we offered to stay on to look after the dogs and plants. It meant we had more time with the family and could take our time looking around. We also took the opportunity to have our car checked over, the tyres replaced and bought a new caravan tyre to replace the wrecked one.

Great camp on Summer and Stewart’s five acres

On Stewart’s birthday, we all went into Darwin for dinner. We ate at Alfonsino’s, an awesome Italian restaurant in an alleyway off Mitchell Street. We all loved our meals and had a lovely celebration for Stewart.

We spent most of the first week with Maureen and the girls, having dinner all together when Summer and Stewart returned from work in the evenings. In fact everything stopped each day around 4pm for drinks and a cheese platter. A bad habit but one we found hard to give up. We did take a drive out to the Mindil Sunset Markets which was fun. We browsed the stalls and particularly the food stalls. Wow, so many and all different. We sat at a table on the green listening to a couple of bands while we ate. Then we wandered over to the beach to watch the sun set. It was lovely but it was strange for us to see the beach so busy. At home we love watching the sun set from our verandah or an empty beach.