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Published: October 16th 2021
First stop this morning is the Darwin Museum and Art Gallery ......well the museum at least; it seems that the art gallery bit is temporarily closed while they get it set up for a major exhibition.
The Museum includes a large section on Cyclone Tracy which hit Darwin on Christmas Eve in 1974. The residents didn't take warnings about Tracy all that seriously as they'd been warned about another cyclone a few weeks earlier which ended up more or less bypassing the town and not really affecting anyone. Tracy virtually wiped Darwin out. Seventy one people died, few buildings were left standing, and the damage bill was close to seven billion dollars in today's money. A lot of the buildings effectively exploded as they weren't designed to withstand cyclone force winds. The town was largely evacuated while it was rebuilt. The rumour circulating when I lived here was that the government of the time was hoping that the majority of residents wouldn't return, but nearly all did. Displays include a sound booth reenacting the noises that locals had to endure while Tracy was passing through. There's a warning outside it that this might be too much for anyone who was
here at the time. I remember from living here that anyone who experienced Tracy could cope with any amount of clamour from thunderstorms and torrential rain, but they got really spooked by any sort of wind noise.
We move through to a large section on the town's human history. It seems that until 1911 the Territory was administered by the South Australian State Government. The Crow Eaters left it largely neglected, and even Darwin, by far its largest settlement, had no town water, sewerage or electricity. It was a wild and very sparsely populated frontier. A Prime Minister of the time, Alfred Deakin, famously said that the Territory either had to be populated or handed over to a foreign power. Hmmm, I wonder how that might have turned out. Just as well we didn't hand it to the Chinese. We're worried enough about them invading us as it is without having them already here. Oops. There's another black mark against me in Premier Xi’s little black book. Fortunately our Federal Government responded by taking over control from the South Australians.
The 1872 Pine Creek gold rush brought a lot of Chinese to the Territory, and for a long
time they were its second largest racial grouping after the aborigines. The Chinese were heavily discriminated against under the White Australia Policy; they weren't allowed to work for the Public Service, and were forcibly rehoused to poor areas to keep them out of the centre of Darwin. Some were even forcibly deported - particularly the old and sick - and this was apparently completely legal, unless they'd been here before 1901. Populating Darwin and the Territory in general continued to be very difficult. Most roads leading here were only tracks and were completely impassable in the wet, and it was much easier for Darwin locals to get to Hong Kong or Singapore than to or from Sydney or Melbourne. The only realistic way of getting here overland from down south was by camel. Labour was in chronically short supply, so much so that at the outbreak of World War 1 a law was enacted making it illegal for Territorians to be conscripted (this was later revoked when the War got a bit more serious). The Territory only finally became self governing in 1978.
Next stop is a massive display of fishing and other small boats. They include the first
boat used by Vietnamese refugees to escape to Australia back in 1978 - it looks way too small to have come all that way. Its passengers and crew apparently had to pretend that they were going fishing in order to escape; fortunately they were welcomed with open arms by the locals when they finally arrived here in Darwin. Another craft, the "Tujuan", hailed from Indonesia, and looks like a mini version of Noah's Ark. It was used to catch sharks, and when the price of shark fin skyrocketed in 1990 its skipper decided to venture into Australian waters in search of more of his increasingly scarce and valuable prey. The boat and its crew were eventually captured by the local authorities and the craft was subsequently donated to the Museum.
Next cab off the rank is a taxidermy display of a massive five metre long and nearly 800 kg crocodile, known affectionately as "Sweetheart". This reptilian monster apparently developed a penchant for attacking dinghies in the lagoon system south of Darwin in the 1970s. It twice tipped fisherman overboard, but fortunately on both occasions they were able to escape without getting eaten. It subsequently became a bit of a
Darwin Museum and Art Gallery
Boat used by Vietnamese refugees.local folk hero. The authorities eventually decided it was getting a bit too dangerous, and in 1979 it was finally caught and anaesthetised. Unfortunately on the way back to shore its net got tangled in a log and Sweetheart drowned. It was initially named "Sweetheart" due to uncertainty over its gender, but it was eventually discovered to be a bloke. The film "Rogue" is said to be based on Sweetheart, albeit apparently with a fair degree of artistic licence.
We move on from the Museum to the Darwin Botanic Gardens. These have apparently been here in some form since way back in 1886, although nearly 90% of the plants were lost in Cyclone Tracy. The reconstruction effort was led by George Brown, later to become Darwin’s mayor, and the gardens have subsequently been renamed the George Brown Darwin Botanic Gardens in his honour. They are massive and spectacular with an abundance of palms and other tropical plants. They include a rainforest, and an extensive display of cycads which we read are the planet's oldest seed bearing plants. Another section looks like something straight out of Madagascar, with lots of baobab trees in an otherwise almost desert-like landscape.
I
wander down onto Mindil Beach to take some happy snaps of yet another spectacular sunset. We've seen lots of ads since we got here encouraging people to come to the Mindil Beach Casino. The reality doesn't feel quite so welcoming. All I can hear as I wander past are security guards yelling angrily at people to leave the area overlooking the foreshore. It seems you’re only welcome if you’re staying at the Casino’s resort. At least the sunset's nice.
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Sal Foran Robusky
Sweetheart
Hello Dave, when I get the chance I read your blogs! Always amusing but at the same time informative. My husband visited Australia once, and we'd like to visit together. Keep up the great blogs! I am SO behind after Covid in reading anyone's blogs! Take care.