August 26, Sunday to August 30, Thursday AUSTRALIA

August 26, Sunday   to   August 30, Thursday   {AUSTRALIA}

Country # 26 in my “round-the-world” travels
After landing just before 3 am in the morning at the Darwin airport, I made my way by taxi to the downtown hotel I had booked.  My driver was a real hoot !   He reminded me of Howard Hessman who acted in the show WKRP.   He ranted on about conditions in Australia and his stand on multiculturalism, but he was really nice and really funny.  He also cautioned me against going around by myself at night in downtown Darwin.

The Value Inn where I am staying is definitely not the Ritz.  Although it was rated as a 3 star in Booking.com, I would not give it more than a 2 star, but the location is great and at least the room is clean.  No access to the internet.  I have to go to a nearby establishment and pay for access from there, which is not convenient at all.  I’ve tried to located an internet café to use instead; no luck so far.  After my walk around in the early afternoon to get my bearings and obtain some pamphlets from the nearby Tourist Information Office I stopped for breakfast/lunch and found a grocery store to purchase a few supplies. 

Everything is very expensive here:  hotel rooms,  $10 sandwiches and between $20 and $30 for a very basic meal, tours, etc.   But I’m in an English speaking country once again and that feels REALLY good; I had not realized how tiring it was to try to understand what people were saying;  I’ve been doing it for so long now.

Second day, Monday, I walked around some more, exploring the shoreline of the downtown area.  There is a nice footpath along Bicentennial Park

 My first glimpse of the ocean in Australia.  Beautiful colour.

 Bicentennial Park ,  Leichhardt Memorial

I also walked past the USS Peary Memorial (attacked and sunk during the first air raid by the Japanese during WWII)  and the Cenotaph / War Memorial.  At the end of the park there was a staircase leading down to the shoreline where the “Deck Chair Cinema” is located. OK to walk there during the day, but I would be worried about walking it at any other time. 

I also found a marker that refers to the laying of the undersea telegraph cable from Java to Australia in November 1871 (and later learn about the overland telegraph cable linking Darwin to Port Augusta in Southern Australia.). 

I walked all the way around to Hughes Avenue and used the Skybridge to get to the Darwin Waterfront Precinct.

Darwin Waterfront Precinct.   Nice place to come back for a dip on a hot day.   

Darwin was bombed by the Japanese during WWII and 292 people were killed on February 19, 1942 during the first bombing;  177 were on ships in the harbour.  I had not realized that Australia had been attacked !  So much I did not know about the "Pacific" side of WWII.

I walked along the wharf past the convention centre hoping to visit Stokes Hill, which was a Larrakia sacred site. The Larrakias where the indigenous tribe that lived in this area of Australia. I walked all the way around the hill trying to find a way in but had no luck. The hill is occupied by the Royal Australian Navy and is covered with huge oil tanks. So much for the sacred site.

I continued back up the escarpment along McMinn Street and then crossed back onto Bennett Street and back to “The Mall” on Smith Street. 

Victoria Hotel, the “Vic” built in 1893.

The temperature is in the mid 30s still so an extremely hot day. I decided I had done enough walking and found a nice shaded terrace for a late lunch.

The third day, Tuesday, I took a bus out to the Botanic Gardens. $2 for the bus and your ticket is good for 3 hours to possibly cover a return trip. Although bus routes # 4 & 6 both go by the Gardens, the stop is quite a distance away from it. The bus driver gave me some directions and I started walking the “5 minutes” he had indicated but somehow missed the entrance; no signs that I saw and had almost walked past the gardens when I finally saw a large sign pointing back the direction I had come. Maybe this large field I’ve been walking along is the Garden.

I cut across the field, watching out for scorpions and snakes and made for an earthen roadway I could see in the distance.  I followed the roadway until I got to a hillside where the vegetation looked more like a botanic garden.  A little way further along a path I started seeing signs identifying plants.  Yep,  I’ve found the Botanic Gardens.  Over 42 hectares, it showcases the flora of Northern Australia.  No flower displays here however, just vegetation.

 One of the areas in the Botanic Gardens that they are "re-vamping"

 Some strange birds are walking around everywhere.  I forget the name and I did not tag the photo !

 They are doing a lot of work to upgrade the gardens, which are in need of MUCH tender loving care. It is the end of the dry season soon, and the ground is very dry. Even my walk through the “rainforest” portion showed little signs of water. I walked around a fairly big loop and returned to the road via the “woodlands” section of the gardens.

The path from the Gardens to the Museum
From there, according to the map, I was only a short distance from the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. The walk there was a little further than I thought and the signage to get there wasn’t that great either, but there was a footpath for part of the way.

The view of the ocean from the Museum
No photos allowed inside, but the view of the bay from outside was beautiful.  I can’t get over the colour of the ocean; it’s like being in the Caribbean. 

The Museum had beautiful displays of aboriginal art, a section on pearling, a huge section on animals, birds and fish (natural history) of this area.  Another area has a display on the damage caused by Cyclone Tracy in the early hours of Christmas day 1974. Total devastation, most of the town was destroyed.  Officially, 71 people lost their lives, based on the pictures I’ve seen, it’s amazing there weren’t more.  {During my Lithchfield Park excursion Ben told me that the number was definitely much higher since census taking in the early 70s did not include aboriginals, itinerants in the area, and hippies living on the beaches. The true number will never be known.}    The typical houses that existed in Darwin at the time were not cyclone resistant, built on cement posts high off the ground, to prevent termite infiltration, they had a lot of breeze ways included within the structures, and were built of wood and aluminum; the high winds just tore them apart.  Once the rebuilding started, cyclone resistant structures were used and the majority of the houses I see now are built of cement blocks. 

I also got to see “Sweetheart” a crocodile measuring 5.4 metres, who used to attack power boats in the area, was caught in 1979.  Quite a misnomer.   

Downtown Darwin
Darwin is a relatively small city with very few tall buildings.  It is a definite tourist area and a favourite for Australians.  Named after Charles Darwin, who was here during his travels on the Beagle, it is a relatively new city.  The oldest surviving buildings date back to the 1880s and 1920s.  In 1938 there were only about 3000 residents.

The town of Darwin was bombed by the Japanese during WWII and suffered through 64 air raids over a 2 year period.  This was a military training area and played a key strategic role in the defence of Northern Australia.  “More aircraft attacked Darwin the the first wave than attacked Pearl Harbor in its first wave.  More bombs fell in Darwin than on Pearl Harbor.  More ships were sunk in Darwin than in Pearl Harbor” (Peter Grose, An Awkward Truth, 2008)

On Wednesday I had purchased tickets to the Indo Pacific Marine Centre to see the Coral Reefs by night and enjoy a four course dinner so I decided to have a short walking tour of the historical sites Darwin during the day.

Many buildings did not survive the cyclones

 Christ Church Cathedral had been built in 1902 and was destroyed by Cyclone Tracy. This new building was erected in 1975, incorporating some of the ruins to the new, modern architectural plan

 Brown Mart 1880s has been restored

 Ruins of the Old Town Hall

Tree of Knowledge (ficus virens) & HMS Beagle Ship bell chimes. The one from the HMS Beagle is a replica and the others were simply cast for this display. 



 Parliament House

Government House or “The Residency” or “The Seven Gables”

The Cenotaph/War Memorial in the background

Old Admiralty House now the Char Restaurant.  Although this building has undergone a lot of modern touches, it gives you a good idea of what the "typical" house looked like in Darwin when Cyclone Tracy hit this part of Australia in 1974.  It is a tropical style elevated structure of cypress pine.


Lyons Cottage built in 1925

 Downtown Darwin near my hotel

The small pool at my hotel

I had made my way back around to the hotel and although it was a bit early I decided to call it a day and get ready for the evening at the Indo Pacific Marine – Coral Reef by Night.  Unfortunately, when I got to my room I found a message saying that the evening had been cancelled since they did not have enough clients to put on the 4-course meal.  Too bad.  I decided to do some laundry and luckily, the laundry room was on the roof of the adjoining Melaleuca Hostel.  It turned out being too hot to sit in the sun so as soon as my laundry was done I went back to the room to hang up my still damp clothes.  Those darn dryers never do seem to do the job right, but at least I have some clean sweaters to wear.  I’ll have to through some of them out soon however since there are some stains that simply won’t wash out.

Thursday was a quiet day and after spending some time on the internet at the Melaleuca Hostel, I just rested around the pool at my hotel.  Tiny, but at least there is some shade to protect me from the extremely hot sun.