Darwin, NT Australia

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We arrived in Darwin in torrential rain and its rained on and off ever since. Apparently the wet season has started later than usual this year and is now making up for lost time! We arrived at 06.00 so the first thing Brian wanted was breakfast. I wanted sleep. I found the overnight flight very tiring and not something I would do again. Anyway sftrr breakfast and sleep we took a stroll in the wrong direction! I thought that the taxi driver had said turn right out of your hotel band its a short walk to the harbour. We should have gone left! You know how there are some parts of every city where you don't take visitors.. we eventually found the city centre. It's a small city with just over 100,000 population. Lots of history from second World War as Darwin was the only part of Australia to be bombed by the Japanese ..in 1942.
Today we took (another) tour bus. But this one had an interesting start. We asked at reception where we should wait and set off. We couldn't find the bus stop but stood looking around us and a car pulled up. The man inside introduced himself as the owner of the bus company. The hotel had phoned him and he had come to pick us up as we would have had to wait 30 minutes and it had started raining. He took us into the bus station where we could wait in the information office. Then we did the tour calling at a museum for a while learning about the region, Aboriginal life, local animals and all about Cyclone Tracey which in 1974 destroyed most of the city. Last night we ate in a waterfront cafe down by the harbour and watched the light show - three sets of thunder and lightening -we were the only people who seemed to take any notice!

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