Cairns to Darwin via Gove

First I apologize - I have not had an opportunity to post more pictures, and probably will not be able to do so again. Saturday we sort of took a vacation from our vacation and spent most of the day just relaxing at Tom and Tricia's. It was a beautiful day, and was quite nice to just lie around on the veranda and enjoy the tropical breeze. In the evening, we were scheduled to fly to Darwin, but our direct flight to Darwin was cancelled, so they booked us on another flight through Gove. Now if you're looking for the town of Gove on an Australian map, don't bother. You won't find it on the map. Gove is a small "outpost" in the middle of aboriginal land known as Arnhem Land. There are very strict restrictions about traversing on Arnhem Land, and visitors are required to obtain permission to gain access - not that we were planning to go there. The Gove airport was very small. In fact, it's probably the smallest airport we've ever been in.

We were required to deboard the plane, even though we were flying through to Darwin. We walked down the steps - there are no gates here for the plane to pull up to - and took a short walk across the tarmac and into the terminal. Once inside the terminal, we took a few steps, turned right, went through security which consisted of a short conveyor belt (we had to go through security again even though this was just an intermediate stop) and stepped out of the security area and into the gate area, which was the only gate at the airport. Then we re-boarded the plane and were off to Darwin. Tom and Tricia are joining us for this portion of the trip, and will be traveling with us for the next few days.