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I had always wanted to visit Darwin ever since my cousin, Anne, and her husband, Neil, had moved there 25 years ago. It seemed so exotic. This trip seemed the best opportunity to get there so it was a point on the map from the very beginning. There was a note of surprise in most people's voices, especially those who knew Australia, when we told them it was going to be our only stop on the continent. We reckoned it was where the 'real' Australia might be (if it exists at all) and, anyway, that is where Anne was!
As English, I suppose we should first talk about the weather. However, in Darwin at this time of year, the start of the dry season, there is no point. It is 32C during the day and 20C at night. That's every day without exception. We finally saw the odd fluffy white cloud on our last two days otherwise it was just clear blue sky.
Having said that Darwin's short history (settlers started arriving after the 1850's) is defined by two key dates, one of which was weather related. First, in 1942 the Japanese launched air bombing
Rapid Creek to the North of Darwin City
We borrowed Anne and Neil's bicycles to tour around the coastal parks. raids on the city, the first resulting in more bombs landing than were dropped on Pearl Harbour. This is the only direct attack by an enemy on Australian soil. The second was the near total destruction of the city on Christmas Eve, 1974 by Cyclone Tracy. Both these incidents caused mass evacuations and saw the area being turned into a restricted military zone for a period of time. After Tracy, the population dropped from 47,000 to around 11,000 in the days after the storm. Many never returned.
Museums and monuments in the area we visited tell the stories of these events in detail. My Mum said a distant relative of mine had been evacuated after Tracy. I could find several 'Drummond's' on the evacuee database displayed in the North Territory Museum and Art Gallery and was not sure which might be a cousin.
Darwin reminded me of MidWest America without the strong cultural Christian overtones. The area is mostly flat with high rises only in a small concentrated area down town. The roads are wide and shockingly empty even at peak times when you have come from Asia. The malls are big and air
What an office view!
The NT Parliment building is to the left with the East Arm inlet behind conditioned.
It appeared an easy place to live. Being sub-tropical most people live a lot of their lives outside on the verandah. These are now build to withstand a beating from a cyclone.
An early port of call for us was the local medical centre as we were both suffering from minor afflictions causing blocked ears. Appointments were quick and efficient and mostly free due to the reciprocal agreement Australian Medicare have with the UK NHS.
Darwin has a transient air. Outside Aboriginals it was difficult to find any body who might call it 'home'. During our two week stay I don't think we met anyone who did not work for the government. Anne said it directly employed 25% of the adult population. It is clear that without them the place would collapse. Even many of those who have lived in Darwin for decades were planning retirements in Queensland or 'down South'.
It benefits from having Asia on its doorstep and the local markets have food and clothing stalls linked to many different nearby countries. There is also a sizeable portion of the population descended from Greek and
Italian immigrants. One Saturday evening we visited the Italian festival downtown for dinner and a few obligatory Peronis.
The beaches are gorgeous, empty sandy expanses particularly when the tide is out (it can be as much as 8 metres). We had a fun morning exploring the garishly coloured soft rocks on the coast at Nightcliff. They look like unmixed paint with every shade of iron oxide from purples to rusts and ochres tossed with white gloss. They are sculpted by the rising and falling tide into pools, ridges and valleys.
Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory (note it is a Territory and not a State like most other parts of Australia). The new Parliment building was impressive (the view of it from Anne's office even more so). The Supreme Court building had an attractive floor mosaic of an Aboriginal starry night sky legend.
The Darwin area (including nearby Palmeston) has probably two thirds of the population of the whole NT and as the capital is a centre for cultural events. We enjoyed two visits to the open air 'deckchair' cinema which showed films outside the Holywood mainstream. It
was so pleasant in the residual warmth of the day. You could forgive the odd fruit bat obscuring your view from time to time.
One weekend we went to the 'Fred's Pass' agricultural show, a proper local cultural event. Anne was an excellent guide explaining all the horsey events. We enjoyed watching a cooking demonstration from a local Masterchef contestant. The new local abattoir was handing out mouth melting steak slices. (They claimed to be part of the largest stock company in Australia which owned 37% of all the private land in the country.) It attracted the NT premier, who we would not have known unless he had been pointed out by Anne. He had no visible entourage. I will not betray Anne's comments!
We left Darwin knowing we had made the right decision to visit this edge of Australia and a key destination on our year of travel. Thanks, Anne, Neil and Rian for ensuring we felt so welcome.
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