My trip to Darwin is coming to an end. I'm mostly packed. In an hour I'll make my way to the airport, doing the Uber shuffle for the red-eye flight back to Melbourne. On arrival in Melbourne, I'll pick up the car and make my way home, where Lucifer will be waiting.
Tonight has been about relaxing. Packing, knitting and getting some much-needed exercise in before the flight. Tonight, after meeting up with Elles and Kos, I went for my constitutional 20 lengths of the pool.
I miss the pool when I go home. I love that I can just throw on my bathers and head downstairs for a swim after work. I love that I can go down at night and swim slow laps while watching Darwin go on around me six floors below. I love having the pool to myself, avoiding the children and the couples smooching and every other sort you get at the hotel pool.
Going down earlier, I was happy. There was one other person in the pool and she was doing slow laps too. We kept out of each other's way. She was doing freestyle. I was sticking to my dreadful, but effective breaststroke, mainly to keep my hair out of the water.
We did our laps in peace.
I got to the end of my 20 lengths, feeling good about the swim when we started chatting. Normal pool chatter. It's not unexpected. I talk to everybody. The normal conversation ensued. What are you doing up here? Checking out their rental property. How do you find Darwin? What's the best bit. A pleasant conversation.
As she was an owner, she asked me if I would like to check out the lap pool.
Too right!
The lap pool is available only to residents and not hotel guests. My lap swimming random person owned one of the higher up units. This was my chance to have a look around this mythical place, which resides behind a high wall and gets little use (and even fewer children).
Of course I jumped at the chance.
This is what I love about Darwin. People are very friendly. My new mate, Jan, rents her apartment out on AirBnB. She runs a consultancy. Her two grown kids will visit next year in the dry season. We talked about Malaysia (where she is from) travels, and where to go in Darwin for dinner in the wet.
I also ended up doing 40 lengths of the pool according to my watch.
After, I thanked my new first name friend for her generosity and pondered this private pool. It's about 20 meters long. It's behind a large wall. Although quiet, it has no view, unless you count the office block next door.
I'm glad I got to experience it, but I think I'll stick to the main pool. I like the view of the sunset as I swim.
Right, off to the airport. Melbourne, here I come.
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