Darwin

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Darwin is a little busy outpost on the northern coast and felt like a metropolis after 5 weeks of one-road towns.

It was a charming place, not least due to the hospitality of Fizz, Tani and Phoebe (still calling me Sandra). We went for fish, chips and ice cream on the harbour, and then the next night were treated to homemade stew, which, although it was about 30 degrees outside, was magnificent.

Paula was really desperate to see the WWII gun emplacement at East Point (I think it was one of her “must do’s” for Australia), so we went and had a look. Now, notwithstanding the massive sacrifices of Australian troops overseas in various conflicts, I think it’s generally fair to say that Australians over-egg their domestic wartime experiences a little. This was one exception however: more bombs were dropped in one raid on Darwin than on Pearl Harbour. And it got flattened by a cyclone in 1974.

There were two other things of note in Darwin:

The Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory- worth visiting alone for the lifesize model of ‘Sweetheart’ - a 5.1 metre saltwater crocodile accidentally killed during capture in 1979 (it had been interfering with small boats), and for a chilling recording of the sounds of howling wind and general destruction, taped by a priest during Cyclone Tracy.

Fish feeding at Doctor’sGully is also worth a mention. It sounds a tacky - you pay about ten bucks to go through a door and toss some bread at fish that are in the sea - but it turned out to be great. Next to the giftshop (!) there were some concrete steps just submerged at high-tide, so the fish can swim right up to your legs.

There were thousands and thousands of them, some quite big, all coming in really close. There were batfish the size of bin lids, and shovel-nosed rays as long as my arm, all sucking mighty-white straight out of my fingers. Well worth getting up at the crack of dawn for.

Darwin was the end point of our West coast leg, so there was the usual flurry of activity to cram everything out of the van back into our bags. Tip - a cafetiere can be packed for checked luggage by using walking socks and half a bag of brown rice.

We did what we always do and left it to the last minute to book something - this time a tour of Ayers Rock, so there was the usual initial panic, frantic use of the internet, resignation at finding out everywhere is full, then elation at finding something, and general euphoria. So we dropped off the camper and flew off to Alice Springs for Ulurru.

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