Are you sure there aren't any sharks Mrs Drinkall?

The do's and don'ts of Darwin

A morning spent feeding fish and bathing at Darwin's Aquascene Fish Feeding Farm, where we saw, amongst others, diamond scaled mullet, milkfish, catfish, green backed mullet, bream, teira batfish, shovel nosed rays and blue spotted fantail stingrays.

Inspired by instructions found at Aquascene, the girls were issued a list of do's and don'ts:

• DO take advantage of early morning temperatures as the afternoons are as hot as Hades.
• DO meet promptly at 7.45 am for a day's worth of Darwin adventure.
• DON'T forget to bring sunscreen and water.
• DO feed the fish at Aquascene with bread.Watch the multiple species of large fish eat from your hands.
• DON'T let your children too close to the water or they will become fish bait.
• DON'T scream too loud in the Darwin wave pool.OK - scream if you want to.
• DO enjoy the ice cream, courtesy of Mrs Drinkall, followed by fish and chips at Cullen Bay.

All of which we did - or didn't as the case may be - before moving on to the Marrara hockey fields for the afternoon's matches against Northern Territory U18 and U15 representative sides.

More do's and don'ts:

• DO show your excitement at playing at the Northern Territory hockey pitches.
• DO make sure to watch impressive performances from Steph Fernandes and Alice Davidson-Richards in goal. 
• DON'T miss these games captained by Tash Nichols and Caoimhe Murdock.
• DON'T be disappointed about losing both matches (0-1 for the U17As; 0-4 for the U17Bs).

Again we did or didn't as appropriate before one final instruction:

• DO, DO, DO get excited about the stars and balmy evenings in Darwin!