Today we landed in Darwin at 7am. The temperature is 31 degrees heading for 35 degrees at midday. The sky is blue, the horizon is shimmering with heat and the attractions of Darwin are calling.
Darwin is a town closely connected with WW2. Twelve days after the Japanese took over Singapore in 1942, Japanese forces mounted air raids on Darwin led by the commander responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbour ten weeks earlier. The first raids killed at least 243 people and wounded 400.
More bombs were dropped on Darwin than Pearl Harbour!!
Contrary to widespread belief at the time, the attacks were not a precursor to an invasion but were meant to damage strong Australian morale the Japanese encountered in Singapore.
The attacks on Darwin continued until November 1943, by which time the Japanese had bombed Darwin 64 times including Townsville, Katherine, Wyndham, Derby, Broome and Port Hedland.
We spent a short time wandering the 3 or 4 main streets of Darwin and explored the one main shopping mall. Two thousand passengers invaded the local Coles store for alcohol, chips, alcohol, thongs, alcohol and other essentials to avoid paying one dollar more than they had to on the ship. The local Dick Smith store sold out of memory sticks for cameras and set up a help desk for bewildered passengers with new duty free complicated cameras. I did queue up to get some technical advice on backing up my MAC.
You could tell who was off the ship as most were still wearing their mandatory neck strap security/identity tags as they wandered through town.
I watched intrigued as one passenger poured a $2.99 bottle of excellent Australian red wine into the gutter of the main street. I asked what she was doing and then watched as she replaced the red wine with vodka. This was not the act of a 20yr old as you might stereotypically assume, remember that I am one of the youngest passengers on the ship. Ships policy is that wine can be taken on board but not spirits.
We then drove out to Lichfield National Park to the Florence Falls for a bit of tourism. Our GPS got us out there but ran out of battery coming back as our dodgy $40 per day hire car had a faulty cigarette lighter socket. Without technology we were lost in Arnhem Land. Using our Boy Scout skills, and the ratty tourist map in the glove box, we got back just as the ship was unfettering the gangway and earned a rebuke from the ships purser that he called “Strike 1”.
And we haven’t left Australia yet........
