After an incident free flight from Melbourne, I arrived at Darwin Airport with bike box intact and luggage all there. I noticed another bike box waiting to be collected and met Doug who will be the bike mechanic on this tour. Lucky he was there as TDA sent the crew car to pick him up and gave me and a Canadian rider David, who flew in from Brisbane, a lift to Hidden Valley Tourist Park, about 13km out of Darwin. TDA founder Henry Gold was in the welcoming committee!
The TDA group thqat cycled across Indonesia arrived the night berfore and it was nice to see some familiar faces.
Old friends John and Chris from previous TDA tours.
I had dinner with Chris on the first night at a restaurant about 600m from The Hidden Valley. Not bad food.
On the second night I had dinner with Bob, an Australian on his first TDA tour, at the same restaurant.
I had booked a room at The Hidden Valley for the first night so I didn't have to go straight into camping mode. As it had two bunks as well, I offered a bunk to David, my new airport friend, and he booked the room for the second night so it all ended well.
Doug the mechanic fine tuned Al (my bicycle) for me as the headset was wobbly so on Wednesday I rode into Darwin for a look see. Didn't take very long and I missed the museums.
Wednesday afternoon was taken up with new arrival riders meeting, group riders meeting and then an early night ahead of a 5.15am wakeup call.
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