Time in Darwin............Part 2...............

I'm back again to finish our Darwin news........... 

We did a lot of driving around Darwin, including Barry trying to find some places he had been to 20 years ago when he was last in Darwin. Of course there has been a lot of building activity since then, so some streets were unrecognisable.....

..................we spent some time in the Casaurina shopping centre, topping up the supplies and looking around and trying to remember the way out!!?............

.....I was able to "attend" my friend's funeral online from Cairns and was very fortunate to get a good internet connection and feel as though I was actually there........

.......we decided to check out the Mindil Beach Sunset Market that we had heard so much about from other friends, and Barry punched it into his car navigation system.......and somehow we ended up at this place????.....the Darwin Casino???.......and since then my facebook feed comes up with adverts for the casino, that we have never been to??.......watch out, big brother knows all!!........

...........we arrived early at the markets, so it was not too crowded............but by the time we were ready to leave it was very busy.......... there were many stalls selling a multitude of different crafts and other wares, as well as a wide variety of different foods to enjoy.......with lots of seating and entertainment......

......of course I had to take a look at the beach and snapped a couple of pics..........

 .............................after we had been to East Point Military museum we had lunch by the sea, and enjoyed a potato twist with our own packed lunches.........they were much larger than they looked in the brochure!!......but were delicious...............

.............Barry had a couple of days doing work jobs at the "office" in the van.......

.........we booked a Sunset Cruise on Darwin Harbour which was lovely...a cruise around the Darwin harbour with the captain pointing out places of interest as we went............the weather was perfect, a calm 30degrees.................

...............this is a view of Stokes Wharf from the sea................

....a couple of ships at another wharf.............

.........this is Parliament House, a very distinctive building that is sometimes nicknamed "the wedding cake'..............

................an Italian naval ship in the harbour................

.................another ship at the Navy base...............

                                              ..................and of course some sunset photos................

.......this is the ship we went on, taken as we disembarked after our 2 1/2 hour cruise...........

.......after we had been to the War Tunnels we enjoyed another meal at Stokes wharf again..................

............the seagulls enjoyed the chips we threw to them..............

...............we went for a drive to Cullen Bay and saw the 'boats' in the marina there........and the high rise apartment buildings...........

..................we drove to Palmerston for a look around.........found another shopping centre and I found a clothes shop and made some purchases.......I could not believe just how many winter clothes were in the shop and they are enjoying their warm weather???

We drove around the Port area...........................but this was as far as we could go.............

............and we watched a road train unloading large stone to build ??? ....this is the first time I had seen trailers unloading from the side..........

.......there were many of these tanks at the Port, and we are not sure what they hold..............

................the guide on the cruise told us that there were 3 ship loads of gas going out of Darwin every week to Japan........as we hear talk of a shortage of gas in Australia????????

                               ...................and we found the Adelaide to Darwin Ghan terminal...................

and we went back to Stokes Wharf again for a "last supper" the night before we left Darwin............do you see a recurring theme here?...........that we loved going to the wharf??

The food was always yummy, and we loved watching the boating activity in the bay.........

..............and lots of people were feeding the fish in the water below, as well as the seagulls enjoying chips thrown at them.

It was Thursday morning, and Day 27 of our trip, that we left Darwin after a lovely week enjoying the city and it's weather.....(well once we adjusted to the heat that is!!)............... 

We headed south again to retrace our northward journey. 

Stayed tuned...........

Blessings, From Jude

Time in Darwin..........Part 1.....

 It must be time for another update of newsfromjude, so I will try to get our time in Darwin into some sort of order for a post.............

First I will include a bit of Darwin history from the internet.........

The harbour of Darwin was discovered in 1839 and was named after British evolutionist Charles Darwin. The Overland telegraph was constructed between South Australia and Darwin from 1870 to 1872. In 1871 a 1100 mile submarine cable between Darwin and Java was laid. This in turn was connected to Singapore, Europe and London.

Originally the Northern Territory was a part of South Australia, but was separated to Commonwealth control in 1911.

Aviation has played a significant part in Darwin's history. Ross and Keith Smith landed here to achieve the first flight from England to Australia in 1919. As early planes struggled with the distance from Europe, Darwin became a vital stopover airport.

At the beginning of WW11 Darwin only had a population of 2000 and was extremely isolated with a small airport, unsealed roads to the rest of Australia and little infrastructure.

The bombing of Darwin by Japanese forces has had a lasting effect on Darwin, both in the destruction caused and the massive build up of the area by allied forces.

To aid the war effort, the road to Alice Springs was upgraded and sealed, large military airports were built at Darwin and Batchelor and many smaller airfields were built. Adelaide River developed as an important strategic military base with ammunition dumps, supply depots and a hospital. The railway was strengthened to handle a massive increase in traffic and the rail bridge was decked to provide a wet season crossing for road traffic.

And the biggest change was delivered in a few hours by Cyclone Tracy in 1974 when the existing town was nearly completely destroyed. Many of the victims of the cyclone are buried at the Darwin General Cemetery and a visit can drive home just how much this destruction affected peoples lives. However the rebuilding that followed has left a well designed, modern city very few old buildings.

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Driving into Darwin and following the signs................

We were booked into the Hidden Valley Caravan park, and it is aptly named, as it sits in a valley and there are lots of trees around...............a very tidy, well maintained, clean park, and very busy as the sites fill up quickly.

As we were staying for a week, we put the awning out, and even had our clothesline hung for the washing as there were no dryers in the laundry. I must say with temperatures in the 30 or over, the washing dried very quickly.

I will just post a few photos taken during the week as we drove around Darwin...............

My personal thoughts..............The vegetation in Darwin was prolific and very tropical. The high rise buildings seemed to be mostly apartments and mostly new and modern. It is a tourist orientated city, and I felt it was more like a large country town instead of a big city. Due to the destruction of the city by Cyclone Tracey, most of the buildings are new. There was so much to see it was impossible to see it all in a week.

STOKES WHARF

The historic Stokes Hill Wharf offers a relaxed friendly atmosphere with seaside alfresco eateries, restaurant dining, a spot to fish and is a hub for various cruises and tours on beautiful Darwin Harbour.

The tables are all along the wharf and if you get there early enough you can find a table right at the edge, that overlooks the water, and watch the fish and the boating activity in the harbour. Of course, the food is great too.

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On the 19th february, 1942, war came to Australia. Darwin is full of information about the Japanese attack. I was quite stunned to find out all this information as it was not taught to my generation at school.  I did find this info that might explain the lack of information in southern Australia!?

I will cover the places we visited relative to the war in this post and do a part 2 for the rest of our activities.................

                        The Darwin Military Museum is located at East Point

The site is within a heritage listed area that contains WWII fortifications. The No.2 gun turret is located within the Military Museum and, along with the No.1 gun turret, is one of the major fortifications at East Point.

This is a concrete base for Anti-aircraft gun and is on the shore at East Point Darwin......... This is facing the sea, and to watch for any attack from that direction, but apparently they were surprised by a Japanese attack which came from behind, and caught them unprepared!!

Barry was wondering how anyone could ever fit into this space, and how uncomfortable it would be.....

I don't 'do' steps very well, and I thought, oh no, I will stay down here while Barry went up. He said come on, it will be worth it, and I have to say it was.......

...this was at the top of those stairs......

The museum was well set out and I loved all the tropical plants.............

The Darwin Aviation Museum, located in Winnellie, Darwin, houses an impressive collection of the Territory's aviation history and reminds us of Darwin's frontier role in World War II.

A massive B52 Bomber dwarfs other exhibits, including Mirage and Sabre jets, a Spitfire replica, Orion P3-C, Wessex and Huey Cobra helicopters. Other exhibits include engines and armament as well as many photographs of Darwin at war, pioneer flights and record breakers. The development of the jet age is also depicted through displays and photographs.

There was a film depicting the flight of Ross and Keith Smith and early pioneers of flight.

There were several places where you could sit and view films about war events, as well as the first flights from London to Darwin. The film of the bombing of Darwin was very confronting and showed just how close Australia came to be taken by the Japanese.

This is the remains of a Japanese plane that was shot down ..........

The B-52 bomber plane was so large, it was hard to get a good photograph showing it's size, but it took up a fair part of the building and you can see the size in comparison to some of the other planes in the following pics.

........and there were more stairs!! Which led to the a view in the cockpit of the plane........(Ansett used to be a South Australian airline many years ago!)

This photo shows the size of the B-52 compared to the building it is housed in.

We also toured through the WW11 Oil Storage Tunnels. These were built during WW2 by the Civil Construction Corps to protect Darwin's oil supplies from the Japanese bombing raids. However by the time they were completed, the risk had ended and were never used to store oil. They were reopened in 1992 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Bombing of Darwin. They are located beneath the cliffs of Darwin city.

There are many places around the city that acknowledge the WW2 heritage of Darwin.

In summary, this Darwin trip, as well as what we learnt at Adelaide River, has been a great education for me about how Australia was invaded. It wasn't only Darwin that was attacked, but Broom on the west coast of Australia, Darwin in the centre, and Cairns and Townsville on the east coast. And also a small Japanese submarine was discovered in Sydney harbour!! How close we came!!!

I will finish this post here and do a part 2 of the rest of our activities in Darwin.

Be back soon,

Blessings, From Jude