Darwin - Northern Territory Capital and Gateway to Asia

We've set up camp at the Tumbling Waters Holiday Park, Berry Springs, about 30-40 minutes drive from Darwin's CBD.  Many of the caravan parks closer to Darwin city are expensive (around $60 per night) and don't have good reviews either from those who've stayed there recently or from our campsite application WikiCamps.  We're enjoying our week here, away from the city rat-race but still close enough to sample the attractions and shopping of Darwin.

The park owners have activities for campers including an open air deck chair cinema with movies on Wednesday and Saturday, bingo, a trivia night and feeding the fresh water crocodiles.

On Friday we've got our car in at Toyota to look at the KDSS suspension levelling system which has a lean.  The Toyota dealer at Katherine wasn't able to fix it during our recent service so we're booked into the "big smoke" to hopefully get it sorted out.  We've decided to be tourists in the city for the day while we're car-less.  We're taking advantage of the cooler morning with a bit of a breeze to do some walking and will get onto the hop-on/hop-off bus in the afternoon when it's hotter.

We walked through the Smith Street Mall and turned towards the Esplanade.  Darwin has many parks, lots of little places with grass, seats and shade and at the end of the mall is a park with a statue of John McDouall Stuart who spent 4 years exploring the country from Port Augusta to Darwin.  The Stuart Highway which stretches 2,800km bisecting Australia is named after him.  Alongside the Esplanade is Bicentennial Park, a long park with views of Darwin Harbour.  We walked past the Cenotaph with plaques commemorating wartime battles and and the military units which have been based in Darwin.  ADF personnel were practising for the  Vietnan Day ceremony in a few days.

At the end of the Esplanade we came to the Northern Territory Parliament building, known affectionately as "The Wedding Cake" (white, square and filled with fruit and nuts with a smattering of alcohol!).  We spent an interesting time in the building looking at the 2013 Political Cartoon Travelling Exhibition - very entertaining and we had a few laughs.  Nearby we visited the Contemporary Art Space with its exhibition from the Alice Springs Beanie Festival which is held each winter in Alice Springs.  The beanies really are art-works and we marvelled and laughed at the imaginative headwear.  As well as the beanies there were some beautiful fabric art panels.

After we left the parliament area we walked towards the Darwin Festival site - The Darwin Festival is on at the moment and there's plenty of street entertainment during the day as well as many evening events.

We walked past the ruins of the Darwin Town Hall which was demolished by Cyclone Tracey in 1974.  We also saw the Beagle Bells which are next to the Tree of Knowledge, a huge banyan tree. The HMS Beagle Ship Bell Chime is a musical instrument of a series of cast bronze ship bells including a replica of the bell from HMS Beagle, the ship that Charles Darwin travelled on.

Our next stop was the Chung Wah Chinese Museum and Temple.  Darwin has a very large Chinese population and until 1911 over 50% of the population identified as Chinese.  The museum is very informative with family trees and exhibits on all manner of Chinese life and impacts.  Imitation sedan chairs provide a place to sit and listen to stories narrated by some of Darwin's Chinese residents.






Then we walked back to the visitor centre to pick up the red Explorer Bus for our afternoon sightseeing tour.  We passed this statue which was donated to Darwin by it's sister city in Greece.








Once on the bus we relaxed and listened to the excellent commentary as we drove through the Darwin region.  We passed the exclusive marina area which is a cyclone safe haven.  There are 8 locks into the marina and boats can be moored there in case of cyclone.




We got off the bus at the Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery, a great place to learn more about this part of our country.  A significant event in Darwin's history was Cyclone Tracey which devastated the city destroying 80% of buildings on Christmas Eve 1974.  The museum has an excellent Cyclone Tracey Experience with plenty of audio-visual exhibits.  The dark sound room with its loud noises of wind and crashing debris gave us a feel for how frightening it would be to experience nature's fury.  It's amazing that only 71 people were killed, although this is the official death toll and unofficially it's believed to be over 200,

The maritime exhibits include many boats that have impacted Darwin's history - various canoes, pearl luggers, asian fishing boats are just a few.  In the art gallery we saw a fascinating photographic exhibition of marine life.  Animals only a few centimetres long (or smaller) photographed and enlarged were amazing to look at.

Back on the bus we drove through parklands through East Point Reserve and past the Military Museum.  We had planned to get off the bus here but time is a bit short so we'll come back tomorrow.

We continued past the harbour on our way back to the CBD and saw the huge oil storage sites, erected during World War II but never used to store the oil they were built for.  The Pitch Black military exercise is on at the moment and there are 7 countries involved in the "war games". The RAAF base here had an Open Day on Saturday with 12,500 visitors.

The next day we're back into our car to see some attractions.  Darwin has a vibrant market culture so we visited the Parap Village Markets for lunch and to check out the stalls.  The multicultural nature of the population means that food from many parts of the world is available here.  We're closer to Indonesia than we are to any other major Australian cities and there's also a large Thai population (with their amazing food culture) here so the food is REALLY GOOD!!

After the markets we're back to the Military Museum at East Point.  Darwin was attacked by Japanese bombers on 19 February 1942, killing over 200 people, many on the USS Peary.  The north of Australia was attacked many times although most raids were not widely reported at the time.  This museum includes the Defence of Darwin Experience with an excellent short movie.  We learned much about the numerous bombing raids and how Darwin residents were affected.

During the 2 hours we spent at the museum we visited the many exhibits outside the main building.  These were well worth visiting as they were specifically themed.  This vehicle was used by Major Les Hiddens - The Bushtucker Man - in the first series of his popular TV show.

Sunday evening we set off for another Darwin institution - the Mindil Beach Markets.  These twice weekly, late afternoon/evening markets are about 4 times the size of the Parap Markets.  We dined on mango smoothies and meaty pork ribs - more delicious food choices than we could handle.