The Top End

We are slowly getting back to doing some travelling again. Our most recent adventure took us to Darwin for the ASSBI conference. Not only was this our first time visiting the ‘top end’ of Australia, it was my first time attending a face-to-face conference in nearly five years! I was the conference convenor for this event and it was a pretty busy few days for me, but Rob took full advantage of the gorgeous weather and wandered around the city exploring the sights.

Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory and is one of the warmest, most humid areas of Australia. Fortunately, May is a little cooler and drier with average temperatures around 30. Darwin’s traditional owners are the Larrakia People who refer to themselves as Saltwater People because of their connection to the sea. As part of the conference, a Larrakia Elder welcomed us to country and encouraged us to dip our feet in the sea so the Larrakia People would know we were there. As beautiful as the sentiment was, I have to admit that I was not brave enough to put my feet anywhere near the water in Darwin. The city is surrounded by beaches but saltwater crocodiles are also really common in the waters there. This was all the crocodile I needed to see!

Since swimming at Darwin beaches is ill advised, the city has a massive wave pool but also a small area of sea water that they’ve sectioned off to allow people to do lap swimming but also give kids a place to play. How cool is this obstacle course?!

One of the coolest things about Darwin is all of the different wall art. It’s absolutely everywhere.

This one is of Paul Kelly (Australia’s James Taylor) and Kev Caromody, an Aboriginal singer-songwriter.

They co-wrote this song to celebrate the return of some traditional lands to the Gurindji people following a seven-year strike. Here’s a link to the song if you want to give it a listen:

I managed to duck out of the conference for a short while one afternoon so Rob and I could select some traditional artwork from a local artist. This gallery was filled to the brim with art so it definitely wasn’t an easy choice. Unfortunately, we didn’t take a picture of it before packaging it all up for transport and it’s not on the wall yet so I can’t share what we ended up with.

While I was busy working, Rob did a bit of relaxing…

And of course enjoyed some Guinness (this is what Rob called ‘going to the markets’).

He also did a tour of the World War II Oil Storage tunnels which were built to protect Darwin’s oil. By the time they were completed, the risk of bombing from the Japanese had passed but the tunnels were used to store jet fuel in the 1950s during a conflict with Indonesia.

Rob definitely did the exploring for both of us on this trip. Normally, I try to add a day or two extra to conference travel so I can see a bit of the city too, but I couldn’t manage it this time. However, Rob made sure to plan some lovely locations for dinner so I could enjoy the sites a little bit.

And after busy days, a little bit of wine was nice too.

Even though I didn’t get to explore Darwin very much, I had an amazing few days. The conference went smoothly and I attended some really great talks. It was fabulous to be able to hear about the great research happening in brain impairment and also hear directly from some people with lived experience. Even though I joined the ASSBI committee a number of years ago and have had the privilege of working alongside people I’d always admired and respected during my time in Canada, this conference was the first time I’d had the opportunity to meet some of them in person. What an amazing group of people it is – kind, welcoming and all very devoted to improving the lives of people with brain impairment. At this year’s conference, I was instated as President-Elect for ASSBI….such an honour! I’m looking forward to continuing my work with ASSBI in the years to come.