The Darwin Disaster

How does a disaster happen in Darwin? It started with a Darwin Mindle Beach sunset, wandering the Mindle Markets and then losing my life, all in 24 hours!

Darwin is the capital of Northern Territory and a tropical average of 31 Degrees Celsius all year round. Coming from the dust of Kakadu National Park up the Stuart Highway, the balmy dusk was no exception. The rains had started and I was disappointed that they had affected the Mindle Markets. While there were still some stalls, many of them were packing up to go home. We watched a very talented whip cracker and flame thrower entertain the crowds then headed out to Mindle Beach for a night time view of the city.

I laughed as Princess hopped around, scared of the sand crabs scuttling across the foreshore. I then watched her disappointment when I said we couldn't swim in the beach due to a risk of crocodiles, sharks and jellyfish. We headed into the city and booked into the Oaks Hotel. By this time I was hungry and tired. I was certainly not in the mood to deal with a lazy receptionist who gave us the wrong room. Half an hour later, we were given the correct room and ordered room service.

When I went to bed that night, I wasn't aware of the disaster about to unfold the next day. If I knew, I wouldn't have gotten out of bed!

As we packed everything up, Princess had extra jumping beans than usual. The coffee in the room was horrible, I hadn't slept very well and was ready for breakfast. Princess on the other hand was running all over the apartment, throwing things everywhere, being loud and quite a handful! When I finally got to the car, I started to relax and reached for my flat iphone to charge it. The pocket was empty.

Dread crept through my veins. I frantically checked other pockets, through the dirty clothes bag, practically unpacked the car on the street and started retracing my steps. Searching the pavement to the hotel entry, the reception area, the lifts, up to the room, in the room, back down every lift, back to reception, back to the car, back to reception. My iphone 6 was nowhere to be found. A year of memories, not backed up, gone. I kicked myself for ignoring the warnings I had run out of cloud space. As a consequence, I lost a year of notes, the emails I needed for the case conference, photos, app data, everything.

The receptionist on duty was amazing. She went through the video footage. As I watched the playback of me walking outside with the bag on a funny angle, I knew my phone would have easily fallen out. Princess could be seen jumping all over the place as I walked behind her. I remembered I was at my wits end, cautioning her of the road hazards and asking her to relax. There's no way  I would have noticed the phone falling out.

I went back to the car and cried. I needed a phone for my case conference the following day. I couldn't not have a phone. I sat down for breakfast and wrote a list of everything I could remember and where I could retrieve the information. My first stop was an Optus store, a new sim card and a cheap phone. When I got there, he couldn't help me because my drivers licence was in my phone wallet. I had no phone, no ID and no bank card. I was screwed!

I called Optus and fudged my way through activating a $2 sim card which was kindly given to me for free and bought a $29 prepaid phone from Woolworths. Luckily a language barrier prevented me from needing ID to buy it! I contacted the bank to cancel everything. Logged into Find My Iphone, set up the relevant texts and lock downs. In my heart I knew I was never going to see that phone again!

I walked around Darwin in a daze. The monsoonal rains causing the road drains to overflow felt appropriate. I wanted to crawl into bed and sleep. "It's just a phone," I kept reminding myself over and over, but it was more than that. It was holiday photos along Katherine Gorge, it was access to money, it was automatic passwords and usernames I had forgotten, it was all my contacts. It was devastating.

As we checked into the Darwin Vibe Hotel my spirits lifted. A swim in the pool relaxed me further and I came up with a plan. From that day forward, I was going to make sure I had back ups of everything. I wasn't going to let material possessions rule me. I was going to let everything go, become a minimalist and see the world.

Princess laughed at me as she was playing Minecraft on her expensive laptop, little did she know, I was serious.

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