No flying today! City tour with our driver/guide Winfield. Winfield came over here on holiday from New Zealand 30 years ago and has been here ever since! Had countless points of interest pointed out to us. Made stops at:
Darwin war museum. Well planned recounting of how Darwin was flattened by the Japanese on 19th February 1942. Apart from a first class A/V presentation, there were scores of exhibits of uniforms, models, paintings and hand weapons, plus, outside, there was a huge exhibition of service vehicles and large armaments of all sorts. Darwin had been caught off guard on the fateful night, and thought the swarm of aircraft approaching were American. Sadly it was the Japanese attacking , dropping more incendiary bombs on Darwin than were used on Pearl Harbour. After the war all the remaining steelwork from guns and buildings was cleared away – by a Japanese contractor – nobody else wanted to do it!
Qantas Museum. Set up by a local resident who collected anything and everything to do with vintage vehicles, cars vans and motor bikes. All housed in an old aircraft hanger, through the back we wandered through workshops where volunteers make the proud claim that they will refurbish any and all items donated to them.
Darwin Botanic Gardens. As expected, very exotic! Plants and trees from all over the tropical Northern Territories . Caught eight of a Children’s Python sunning itself on the branch of a tree. After a flurry of photography, Winfield assured us it was a very good model!
North Point to view a large number of wallabies in their natural habitat.
Darwin Museum and Art Gallery. Visited the specialist exhibition on spiders. Also a very interesting exhibition on the effects of Cyclone Tracy (1974), which, again, devastated Darwin. This included entering a pitch black room to experience the noise of the Cyclone as it happened. Also viewed Sweetheart, the largest crocodile captured in the area. She died as she was being towed back out to the flood plains. Since 1976, crocodiles have been a protected species in NT.
Returned back to hotel via the port area, and had open air pools indicated, that are, normally, crocodile free!
Last visit of the day was to Darwin market. Multitude of stalls selling local arts and crafts, food of course, and fruit stalls selling fruits that I had never seen or heard of!
Relaxing afternoon in the room while there was an absolutely torrential downpour!
Round corner to local pub for some very pleasant food – then back to zip up the case ready for moving on in the morning.
M & A in Oz 
Really enjoying your posts Mike. Keep up the good work!! It’s murky and wet in Glasgow today; any spare sunshine would be welcome.
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Fascinating history. Doesn’t look as though you will have time for a dip in one of the normally crocodile free pools! Jane would have loved the spider museum , Colin may have given it a miss. Would love to have seen the unusual plants and fruit. A great experience. Ann x
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