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Published: July 20th 2009
F18
Leaving the ground at RAAF Darwin, participating in Talisman Sabre 09.DAY 255
Today is a much warmer start to the day and incidentally we are both starting to wake up earlier again, I think it must be psychological, knowing that we are moving on later in the week perhaps our minds are starting to get back into needing to wake at 7.00 so that we can get ourselves moving and packed up early and on the road in good time.
The only question mark over us at the moment is when my camera lens is going to appear in Darwin. If it is going to arrive this week then it may be worth hanging on for a few days, but if it is going to be next week then we may need to move on, but that also means I will potentially miss out on some photography opportunities during the trip from the Northern Territory back into Queensland and onto Townsville/Cairns etc. or Alice Springs, should we decide to go that way instead. Choices, choices, but we are lucky to have those choices.
After our leisurely start to the day with breakfast, brain training etc. it was time to go out into Darwin, we wanted to explore
F18
As the first 1 of 4 goes out the noise from the engines is awesome. some more of Darwin and take some photos etc. So first we went down to the Oil Tunnels that are down near the Darwin water front and Deck Chair Cinema.
Our first stop was Darwin Airport, well the end of the runway to be precise, and we only had to wait about 15 minutes until Four F18's went out on exercise, their take off was deafening.
The Oil Tunnels were started off when Japan entered the war, as Australia knew that Darwin would be a prime target for the Japs, so plans were drawn up to have underground tunnels that could be used to store oil away from preying eyes. These tunnels of which there are 6, were all dug by hand with hammer and chisel and the only one that is open to the public could store something like 1772 million litres of oil. The only reason only one tunnel is open to the public is that it is the only one with an emergency exit, so the Navy who still own the tunnels will not let anyone go down in to the other 5 tunnels. Incidentally the other 5 are not in a good state of
repair (so we are told anyway).
Today we find out a little bit more about Darwin, its current location is actually the third and hopefully final location of Darwin, which was previously called Palmerston, renamed Port Darwin in 1911, there is in fact a new city of Palmerston, developed in the 1980’s, located 21km’s South of Darwin. Darwin was the scene of the first enemy attack in WWII, in all there were over 60 air raids during 1942 and 1943.
Another major disaster in the history of Darwin was Cyclone Tracy on Christmas Day in 1974, sadly killing 66 people and devastating the city. A majority of Darwins population were evacuated to other cities and towns in Australia, but most have come back here to resume their lives.
Darwin has been rebuilt and thanks to the post cyclone rebuilding programme Darwin is the most modern capital city in the nation (taken from Darwin City Council website).
Tourism in Darwin really only commenced in the early 1990’s, people originally did not want come here, “It is too far away.” There is no getting away from the fact that it really is a long way from anywhere, but
it is a city worth seeing, with plenty of its own history in its short life and lets face it when the weather in the Southern parts of Australia is cold and wet, where does everyone want to be for the climate? Darwin! I cannot say as I blame them.
The new City of Palmerston became a City in August 2000 when the population reached 23000, 30% of its population is under the age of 15. The population is currently 25,000.
We drove up the hill to park up at the top and wander around some of the Government buildings. It is not the best time of year to see the flora here, there are not many frangipani flowers in the trees, a lot of the palm and pandanus leaves are brown and falling off, but I must not take anything away from the gardens themselves that are tended beautifully, there is not a weed in sight and the grass, looks almost perfect. It would be magnificent to see this area in the wet season when all of the plants have had their fair share of rain, in fact probably more than their fair share if you consider
other parts of Australia that are and will continue to be drought ridden.
We see Government House, which looks very traditional, there are only 4 open days a year, we happen to be here a little to late for the one in May and too early for the one in August. We see the Old Court House and Police Station which is now Government Administration buildings, they look refurbished and immaculate, even the old cells are in behind (they now contain air conditioning units instead of prisoners!). We also see the newer more modern Court House, National Library and Parliament House.
The day is hot, not as hot as it has been, but very pleasant for wandering around. We decide to head up into the shopping centre to find some lunch, there is a Chinese open so we have a nice lunch and then we decide that we should play mini golf.
On the way to mini golf we saw a weird sight, out in the distance just offshore, probably a mile or so we see an oil rig, it was not there last time we drove down here, so we parked and wandered over to the
Oil Tunnel
These were dug by the hands of 400men, but sadly never used as the end of the war came at their completion look out
Sure enough out in the bay was rather a large oilrig, being towed by two tugs! That is not a sight that you see every day. We were impressed, had a look through the binoculars and then went on our way. note: we read in the papers that it is being moved for repairs, it must need some major repair for them to go to the cost of moving it shoreside.
At the mini golf, the challenge is on again, but I won’t bore you with the details though, we both played exceptionally well, but I won! Tee hee.
We returned to camp, Andy beetled around and I sat to type up the blog and do some photo uploading etc. We chatted to Jo and Laurie who stopped by, we discussed our potential route with them, they made a few suggestions and advised us one road in particular would not be a good route to take, unless of course the grader has been down recently.
Neither of us are hungry as we were still full from lunch, so we sat and relaxed, Andy played Solitaire and played Sudoku, incidentally something weird happened, Andy said
Soory Its blured
But a good photo all the same he fancied a bottle of beer, well of course we don’t keep any as he does not normally partake.
So we popped in Howard Springs Village Centre to the bottle shops (The Thirsty Camel) and bought some beer. In the car park was a very drunk lady sat on the kerb, she grumbled about our headlights in her face, however she could have chosen a better place to sit than the car park if headlights were going to bother her.
On the way back, Andy said he fancied some crisps, which we also did not have, but they do at the bottle shop, so we turned around and back we went.
This time we had it right so back at camp we recommenced our relaxation and Andy had his bottle of beer or two and I indulged in a G&T.
I managed to complete an intermediate Sudoku, which I thought had taken me two days, however it tells you how long it took and it actually took me 82 minutes to complete, not bad eh?
We are getting bitten to pieces tonight, I have two Mortein things smoking and one Citronella candle and sprayed with
I wonder
If these fella's are still alive today, what an excellent historical photo. copious amounts of Busham, yet the b*ggers are still managing to sneak through the exclusion zone and bite!!
At 10.00 we went to bed, it is a fairly warm night; we both drift off to sleep quite quickly.
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Helen Sheridan
non-member comment
Cyclone Tracy
Hi once again - Just remembered the museum in Darwin where you can go in a room and experience the noise of cyclone Tracy. Can't remember where it was but it was in the middle of some beautiful gardens and there was a big cafe there. Also the stuffed huge crocodile as well. Love Helen