A Wonky Ear and Howard Springs and

We will save my interview for later. For now, here is an update on how Monday went.

Monday came and I woke up with my right ear feeling wonky. In all honesty, it had felt a little uncomfortable the day before but I had refused to take action hoping it would miraculously self-heal. Well, on Monday, with a slight pain and continuing discomfort, I decided to make my way to the nearest clinic. Once there, I learnt that the consultation fee was a whopping $75 dollars and since I had no insurance cover, I had to fork that amount in cold hard cash. Ouch! Suddenly, my ear felt better. Nevertheless, ahead I went with the consultation. The doctor was a nice Sri Lankan lady who did a thorough examination of my ear and prescribed some ear drops. The interesting thing was that unlike clinics in Singapore where consultation and medication is provided at the same place, in Darwin (and I am assuming the rest of Australia), we had to take the prescription slip to a pharmacy and show it to the pharmacist who would then prepare our medication. Interesting.

Once home from the clinic, Sangeetha and I headed down to Howard Springs. We had heard so much about Howard Springs and were eager to check it out. It was a 20 min drive from our apartment and the weather had become so hot that we were wondering if it was a good move to go for a 1.8km nature trail exploration. When we did reach Howard Springs, we initially thought we were at the wrong place. I mean the place was dead quiet. The entrance didn't look anything like an entrance. There were no signboards screaming "Welcome!". Heck, there wasn't a single soul in sight. We had two options; to look for someone and clarify or to turn back and hopefully drive around aimlessly in search of 'the real Howard Springs'. Luckily for us, we saw a ranger post and found a ranger in it! I mean who would have thought that one would find a ranger in a ranger post right? As luck would have it (again), we WERE at Howard Springs! Wahooo!

We then noticed that the nature trail had been barricaded with the familiar red/white tape. With a plea of pity and puppy-eye look at the ranger, he gave us access till midway of the trail. Sangeetha and I went in search of the Rainbow Pitta which Howard Springs was famous for. Thankfully, the ranger had given as a general idea of where to look and eventually we saw not one but three! It took a lot of effort being quiet, eyes wide open, ears peeled to detect them. But we succeeded and they were beautiful. We saw a couple of other birds as well and almost 90 min later, we made our way out. Once out, we witnessed an Arafura File Snake probing its head among the mangroves in search of food.

Glad to have witnessed some wildlife up and about, we made our way home after a tiring afternoon. At home, we reheated the stir-fried noodles which looked better than they tasted and went to bed knackered.