Darwin - Part 1.

We finally made it to Darwin!

Darwin CBD across the harbour.

We weren't sure what to expect. Carolyn was last here in 1974 (Crikey!), just months before Cyclone Tracey came instead of Santa, and blew the place to bits, and my only visits had been overnight business trips in the early 1990's. What we found is a rapidly growing, very cosmopolitan city with a population of around 125,000 people. Territorians are a casual lot. If you aren't wearing singlet, thongs and a suntan, they know you are a foreigner! So, with our ever expanding wardrobe of singlets, we fit right in! The growth is the result of LNG (Liquid Natural Gas). One loading plant is already operational, and another huge one will open shortly. There is also a huge military presence in Darwin. Sensibly, a large part of our Army, Navy and Air Force is in the Top End. There is a

A USS Bonhomme Richard
was in town.

also a growing US military presence here. The city itself, is very spread out. The CBD is on a narrow peninsula which has been rapidly built out, or is being modernised, with the older style homes being replaced with block after block of units. Satellite cities like Palmerston have grown rapidly and continue to do so, but the road system is excellent and easy to get around. We are staying at the Free Spirit Resort, which is very close to Palmerston, but still only 15 minutes drive into the city. It is a nice caravan park. Very big, with 14 different styles of accommodation, three swimming pools and a bar and restaurant. Like all accommodation in Darwin, it is expensive, but it is nice, and suits our needs as we are expecting visitors from down south, during our stay. Niece Jillian is coming up for nine days, and then Nancy & Keith will be coming for five days later in the month.

The new Darwin Waterfront.

New Wave Pool at
Darwin Waterfront.

Like every other city in Australia, the waterfront region is undergoing a transformation, incorporating entertainment, food and apartment living. Darwin Harbour is huge and brilliant aqua in colour, but the thing you notice immediately is the lack of people swimming. The ocean is  full of things that can eat, sting and cause excruciating pain. If you think sharks are a problem down south, add crocodiles, box jelly fish, stone fish and countless other deadly crustaceans. So the loneliest job in Darwin, is Lifeguard!!

Memorial to the Bombing of Darwin.

They say that Darwin is Australia's newest capital city, as it was rebuilt following the devastation of Cyclone Tracey. Anyone old enough, will remember waking up on Christmas Day 1974 to see the pictures of absolute destruction. Not much was left. Add to that the fact that Darwin was heavily bombed by the Japanese during WW11, and poor old Darwin has copped a lot in it's brief history. I remember mum telling me that they censored the Japanese attacks on Darwin. Not much was learnt about it until some time well after the war, but more bombs were dropped on Darwin than Pearl Harbour, and by the same Japanese planes. We haven't been to the War Museum yet, so more will probably be in Part 2 of the Darwin blog.

Government House.

Parliament House.

Two of the most impressive,and best positioned buildings in Darwin, as is the case in most other Australian cities, are Government House and the Parliament House. We couldn't go through Government House, but did take a walk through the empty halls of Parliament House. It is grand, and totally under utilised, and has a nice cafe and library. The coffee was very good! The locals call the building the "Wedding Cake". because it looks grand, but is full of fruit and nuts! This part of town is really lovely, with lots of parks and huge shade trees looking out over the blue harbour.

More than food at the market.

Mindil Beach Market.

We spent a few days orienting ourselves, pending the arrival of our visitors. We've also spent quite a bit of time around the pool, enjoying this never ending run of hot dry weather. Freeze your butts off you southerners!! As I mentioned at the start, this is the most casual of places. It has a huge Asian population, and due to the weather, there are lots of markets. The most famous is Mindil Beach Market, where you come to eat and watch the magnificent sunsets across the harbour.

The big Paella!

Mindil Beach Market is on every Thursday and Sunday, from

Getting ready for sunset.

around 4.00pm until 9.00pm. The food absolutely amazed us. It is a big market, and half of the stalls are selling food, and I mean lots of food! It is like one of those old Singapore Street Markets. You can choose from every style of Asian food, satay, spring rolls, laksa, soups, noodles and rice, oysters on the shell, seafood, pizza, yeeros and falafel, Japanese food, Mexican Food, fresh

Mindil Beach Sunset.

fruit and juices, and the biggest Paella we've ever seen. It is mind boggling!! Girls, don't despair. After all that food you'll find plenty of other things to buy, from clothes to thongs (of course), jewellery to crocodile bits. And if you need to be entertained, there are jugglers and magicians, a choice of rock or country music, and my favourite, the Black fella playing the five different, electronic didgeridoo. Man has that culture developed! As sunset approaches, everyone takes their food and drink to the beach to watch the magnificent sunset

Bougainvillea is brilliant!

But it isn't the only market. Friday nights you can go to Palmerston for much the same. In fact many are the same stall holders. On Saturday morning you can go to Parap, a trendy little suburb in inner Darwin. Here the emphasis is fresh fruit and veggies, and Asian food. The locals come for Laksa. It is delicious, but a little different for breakfast! On our first visit Kevin Rudd was there. He didn't cop a warm welcome but he bought his Laksa and was seen carrying it around Darwin for hours. Probably went down the Air Force One Loo!! We really like this market and have been every Saturday to stock up on fresh fruit and veggies. The Paw Paw, papaya, mango, bananas, pineapples and passion fruit,  are divine, and very very cheap. Today, we picked up a paw paw that weighed 1.5kgs. He charged us $2.00 and tossed in a mango! Whatever you buy, they throw something extra into the bag!

Welcome to Darwin Jill!

We met Jill at the airport, and quickly got her settled into her Palm Room just across from our caravan site. Then it was around to the pool for a swim and a cocktail. We sorted through the brochures from the excellent Visitor Information Centre in town, and planned our course of action. Of course it included the markets, we did Mindil Beach, Parap, Palmerston and added in Coolalinga, another of the satellite towns south of Darwin. Here there were a few new things, but mostly the usual suspects. You can only eat so many spring rolls and samosas! We also did a long drive around town to check out the lay of the land.

Jill, Bruno and Carolyn.

We arrived at Litchfield NP.

We had picked out a few big things to do during Jill's visit. The first one was a day trip to Litchfield National Park. This is a small National Park close to Darwin and is famous for its beautiful waterfalls. A guy had told us about this particular tour, and said it was an unbelievable day. Called Litchfield Safaris, and run by a Sydney guy called Bruno, the tour is operated in an open air Ford F250 Truck with an 8.2 litre V8 engine, that sounds like a jet plane. It carries 13 passengers, and Bruno drives like a jet pilot! On board are the three of us, a guy from Melbourne, a young female truck sales rep from Melbourne, and 8 sailors and marines off the USS Denver, in town for some R & R. The girls were drooling. Hubba Hubba! We were picked up at the front door, and we roared down the highway with the wind in our hair and the sound of that V8 roaring in our ears! We had a fantastic day. Bruno told us all about the huge termite mounds, and how termites are not ants

Beautiful Buley Rockhole.

at all, then stopped to view Tolmer Falls, the tallest falls in

Fantastic Florence Falls.

Litchfield, then on to Wangi Falls where we all plunged into the huge pool at the base of the falls, that were still slowly running. Here Bruno cooked us a terrific Aussie BBQ lunch, surrounded by birds. All of this area is full of Whistling Kites and Black Kites. Bruno warned us they would swoop and take the food off our plates. By the time Bruno was ready to serve, there were more kites around us than on a Sunday afternoon in Shanghai! We all ate huddled over our food, and when we finished, the kites descended on the picnic area from everywhere. After lunch we frolicked in the cascading waters at Buley Rockhole, and followed this up with a swim at fantastic Florence Falls. This was delightful. Bruno had enough noodles for all, and we swam around and under the waterfalls for the best part of an hour. Back on the truck, the glow from the sunburned bodies of the 7th Cavalry was blinding! Jill was fitting right in as well. For the trip home Bruno handed out paper and pencils and we did Trivia all the way home. www.litchfieldsafaris.com.au

The orchestra was on a barge.

The Darwin Symphony Orchestra.

How do you top that? Well the Darwin Symphony Orchestra tried pretty hard. On the Saturday night they put on a free concert for our troops returning from Afghanistan. The Orchestra was situated on a barge, at Darwin's Stokes Hill Wharf, and tables and chairs were situated all along the wharf. There were food and drink stalls and a real carnival atmosphere. We got there around 4.15pm for a 5.30pm start and got a front row table. The music theme was "water", and we got everything from Jaws to Swan Lake. With the magnificent Darwin sunset, and the barge surrounded by pleasure craft as well as a packed wharf area, it was a wonderful evening we will all long remember. It finished off with a fireworks display.

Ready to board the Duck.

Another fun day was the Duck tour around the streets and harbour of Darwin. The three of us had done a Duck Tour in Ketchikan Alaska a few years back, so thought it was time we did another. The guide was a real character, having been born and bred in the Territory, and she took great delight in telling us how many ways you could die, just by entering the water at a local beach. It was a lot of fun, and seeing Darwin from the water was a new and different perspective. After the tour, we walked the streets of Darwin for Jill to do a little souvenir shopping. We then headed out to Casuarina Shopping Centre, which is the closest thing in Darwin to a Westfield Shopping Mall, to see a movie. We saw "Now You See Me" which we all thoroughly enjoyed. We had planned to go to the famous Darwin Deckchair Theatre, but the stories of all the midgees and bities has scared us away, plus at the moment we have the Darwin Film Festival, so they are showing those obscure, meaningless flicks, with titles like T Shirt slogans, featuring people no one knows, and leaving you wondering, what was that all about???

"The Dominator" 5.5 metres of power.

Up close and personal
with "Brutus."

We couldn't let Jill leave without getting up close and personal with a crocodile. Having been well prepared, with a day on a bus with 8 US sailors and marines, we headed out to the Adelaide River for a "Jumping" Crocodile cruise. Now I have to say I was sceptical about what we'd see. I'd seen photos, but was worried these were those once in a lifetime shots. As we cast off, our first croc sighting, "the Dominator", swam right up to our little boat. The guide put a small cube of buffalo meat on a wire and hung it just over the croc's head. In a flash, Five and a half metres of crocodile left the water, right beside us, so close we could touch it. The snap of the closing jaw was a really loud "Pop". OK I'm convinced. Crocodiles are big and can jump! Having left "The

What about that leap!

Dominator" behind, we headed off in search of other crocs. We saw a really small baby crocodile on a tree branch, and a number of other females who came out for a feed of buffalo meat. All of them put on a jumping show. You can't believe

Jill & Carolyn at the "No Frills"
cruise centre.

how fast these big lizards can move. Further up stream, we met "Brutus", the other big male croc. Poor old Brutus had only 3 legs, a legacy of fighting as a juvenile. But he could still jump, all 4.5 metres of him. The guide teased "Brutus" up onto the river bank, and then we got to see how big he really was. Swimming in the river they are a bit like an ice berg. There is a lot more under the water! It was a real eye opener. I now believe all the photos. I've got my own to prove it. These tours cop a bit of criticism from environmentalists, but let me tell you they are educational. You are left in no doubt as to how fast and lethal a crocodile is. My only criticism was that they didn't tell us to bring a change of underwear! On the way back we stopped at an outback pub for lunch. It was The Corroboree Park Tavern. Looking around at the clientele, it was scarier than the crocodiles. The nearby Corroboree Billabong is a famous barramundi fishing spot and wetland on the Mary River. Lunch was OK.

Couple of Barras!!

Water buffalo.

A bit further down the road, we stopped in at the Window on the Wetland exhibit. It was interesting to read about all that happens as the seasons change. It was here that we finally got to see a water buffalo. You hear so much about these animals, but the reality is that they have almost been eradicated after they reached plague proportions in the 1980's. Now there are limited numbers in the wild, but they are farmed for their meat. On the way back you pass through the town of Humpty Doo. Most Aussies have heard of Humpty Doo. It is now almost a satellite town of Darwin, and is now home to some huge Mango Plantations. When we were in Queensland, I questioned where all the mangos could possibly be coming from. Well now I know. Bowen  mangos come from Humpty Doo!!

Last night at "The Ducks Nuts".

Jill's visit was coming to an end. We've loved having her here. We did our fair share of swimming in the resort pool, and making certain she got to see the sights she wanted to see, as well as a good dose of markets, local culture and shopping, plus a visit to the Casino, which is a bit underwhelming. The hot weather has been a welcome relief from the cold of winter down south. For our last night, we decided on a break up party at a nice place in town. We chose "The Ducks Nuts" where the beer of the week was "the bees Knees". Work that out!!! We had a great night. Turned out that Wednesday was Trivia Night, so we joined in the fun and proved to be mediocre. The food was excellent and it was good way to end the stay.

Next day, we saw Jill off at the airport, and ever since we've just been taking it easy. Back to Parap market on Saturday for more fruit and veggies and some of those amazing Asian soups. Can't believe we are eating soup in summer!! Lots of swimming and reading, and not much more. Nancy and Keith will be here in a couple of days and after they've gone, I'll give you Darwin Part 2, before we start our journey south.