Darwin

Darwin is a strange town, although I guess the inhabitants would probably call it a city.  Although the capital of the Northern Territories, it has a town feel about it.  It’s definitely has a laid back atmosphere.  There’s not much in the way of chasing about and rush hour seems to have by-passed the place.  Although named after Charles Darwin, it’s a very modern place.  There’s few buildings older than about forty years, and for a very good reason.  On Christmas Eve 1974, Cyclone Tracy tore through the area and virtually destroyed Darwin.  Hardly a building remained standing.  Thousands were evacuated and for a while there was some doubt about whether Darwin would simply be abandoned.  However, the Government House, built 1883, managed to survive, and very elegant it looks too.

  

Despite the disaster, Darwin rebuilt itself and now has a population somewhat larger than it was before Tracy. 

With wonderfully clean air and a gloriously tropical coastline, the azure sea beckons.  But, and it’s a big but, nobody goes in the water.  There’s too many estuarine crocodiles.  Even sitting on the beach is unadvisable.  In response, the town has created a very attractive harbour area with wave pool, swimming, dining and shopping areas.

We arrived on Saturday in tandem with Glynn.  He had arranged to store his Land Rover and would be back to continue his Aussie travels later in the year.  As his flight left shortly after midnight, we had part of the day to do a spot of sightseeing, so toured the Esplanade and checked out the town centre.  It was quiet.  Apparently Darwin had a horse race meeting and most of the population seemed to have gone there.  Sunday, Kim and I visited the museum to see the very well presented exhibit on the cyclone.  We also found the museum cafe did a mean iced coffee too.  Sunday night and the Mindil Market was the place to be seen.  It was surprisingly busy, but very similar to hundreds of other markets so we didn’t stay long.

Monday, it transpired was a public holiday – Picnic Day – and to escape the heat we opted for the cinema, watching the excellent film ‘Mr Holmes’, then toured the Botanic Gardens.  Tuesday morning and Vin Rouge went in for a service, after which we’d had enough of towns and traffic lights, and escaped south towards Katherine, staying overnight at Bridge Creek, a free camp site.

Tuesday and it’s coffee at The Finch run by the CWA (Kim’s favourite) topped up with diesel and head back on the Savannah Way once again.  Vin Rouge seemed eager to go and so we rolled along on terrific tarmac roads, completing almost 450 kilometres before making camp at Timber Creek. 

Tomorrow we would be crossing the border into Western Australia, where it’s not permitted to take fresh fruit and vegetables, so Kim conjured up a rather splendid stir fry using the last of our fresh supplies.

As night fell, the moon appeared a perfect sphere.  Later the wind blew, but we were snug in our rooftop tent and woke only a couple of times when a particularly sharp gust caused a bit of movement.  Happy dreams.