Our Museums' Quest in Darwin (July 2014)

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Friday, 25th July 2014

After a self-catered breakfast this morning, we hopped on to the somewhat reliable public bus services to begin our Darwin Museums' Quest. For AUD7, this gave us an unlimited number of rides on the public buses for the day. In expensive Darwin, this was probably one of the few value-for-money options available.

All buses came with complimentary wifi services on board which allowed us to connect on the go. Unfortunately, no public announcements were made as the buses made its stops along the way - certainly not very user-friendly for visitors like us.

Our bus passed through the Sky City Casino and the George Brown Botanic Gardens before stopping along the main road closest to the Museum and Art Gallery. Admission to this fine museum was free and it was opened on most days. The most interesting section in my opinion was the Cyclone Tracy Gallery detailing the powerful storm that struck Darwin on Christmas Eve 1974. There were other galleries worth checking out including the maritime displays of vessels used in South East Asia. We had lunch too at the Cornucopia Museum Café that served wholesome meals and coffee in a cosy setting.

In the afternoon, we continued our journey to the Fannie Bay Gaol Museum, a disused prison complex that told stories of the past. Development plans for this historical site are still in the preliminary stages but this was still a place worth checking out for a couple of hours. Like the museum, admission to the Gaol Complex was also free of charge.

Next, we took a bus to the Casuarina suburb located at the northern part of the city. However, the shopping mall which we planned to hang around had to shut its doors early as this was a public holiday when we visited. This freed us sometime for a dip at our hotel swimming pool for the rest of the afternoon which had a unique salted chlorinated water. This was a pleasant experience which we never regretted.

While some of our travel plans did not go as planned, it was nevertheless a nice day to venture beyond the city fringes to catch up on the museum exhibits.

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