24^th June: Darwin

Not much to report today. We spent Monday washing and shopping for groceries. Not exciting!

Today, we drove into the city and with a hundred or so other tourists, we hit the Information Office about what to see in Darwin. (Not much unless you are into Jumping Crocodiles! Which we are not!) We all went shopping in the mall which is orientated towards tourists. No real shops! So after a picnic lunch in a very nice park overlooking the wharf area and then went driving to explore. We found Cullen Bay (lots of very expensive looking apartment blocks, large yatchs in the marina and large 80's mac mansions),Darwin Sec College, a museum and an old Army installation on East Point with lots of relics of WW2 when the threat from the Japanese was very real. We then joined the peak hour traffic on the Stuart Highway and came home. (It really is busy especially as there are some very large road trains that use this road. Difficult when the one in front has faulty blinkers!

We did explore the museum. It is very good with lots of displays on local fauna especially birds, aboriginal art especially string art and a great display on Cyclone Tracey which happened on Christmas Day 1974. Actually more devastating than the Japanese bombing in WW2. There was still widespread evidence of it in 1977 when we came here. And that was one thing we noticed about Darwin: lots of new architecture. Parliament House is a rather interesting new building, Christ Church Anglican Cathedral has the stone front porch (added to a 19^th century classical Gothic – type church in WW2 by servicmen to honour those who had died in NT) incorporated into a very modern looking structure, and some semi-circular concrete and glass towers being built in the centre of the city. Most of the houses are very 80's except for a group of 4 or 5 heritage listed Burnett houses on the cliffs facing the sea - remnants of colonial times with sturdy posts holding up substantial louvred fibro houses,the macmansions of 1920's. They withstood Tracey while the flimsy 60& 70s buildings did not. 

 

We have enjoyed catching up with Peter, Karen and Mark (who is here for a couple of months as the wages are better) as well as meeting the boys who are now grown men and their girlfriends. We have talked late into the night (while Peter works on his laptop) and the two dogs have adopted us, greeting us like long lost friends and camping under our vans waiting for a pat and a tummy rub each morning!

Glen is putting the X-trail on Peter's hoist today and doing a oil change. Gail and I will go shopping!