Today, I set foot on the continent of Australia for the first time in my life. I think that officially makes Antarctica the only continent that I haven’t been to. That’s pretty exciting! While it was good to get to Australia’s Northern Territory, it was a little disappointing that our time was so short. We weren’t able to get off of the ship until 9:30a.m. and had to be back on board by 3:30p.m. Six hours was barely time to get a taste of the city of Darwin, much less get outside of the city to some of it’s National Parks.
We didn’t book an organized ship tour, but had decided to explore a little on our own. We were going to take the city hop-on hop-off bus, but it only ran every 70 minutes, which didn’t make it very convenient to “hop-off” and catch the next bus with our limited time schedule. So, we found a 3 and a half hour tour being offered by the local tourism office and opted for that. We first did a little shopping on the pedestrian street. That was fun. We saw a couple of aboriginal artists along the way creating new pieces to sell, which was nice. We then met up with our bus tour of Darwin, which began at 11:00 a.m. We drove through the city, visiting the local marina, few coastal suburbs, the old jail, city museum, and Darwin National Park.
Things that I learned during the tour included realizing that Darwin was attacked over 60 times during World War II and that the city was pretty much flattened on Christmas day 1974 by Cyclone Tracey. Much of the museum was devoted to these two events. The museum also had sections with aboriginal art and flora and fauna displays. Also on display was “Sweetheart,” a 15+ ft. male saltwater crocodile that was captured, killed, and stuffed. Out at the Darwin National Park, we got a nice view of the city from an overlook.
All in all, it was an OK day in port. I wanted more time, here, in the Northern Territory, but it wasn’t going to happen this time. I guess we have to leave something to come back to see. If we would have thought ahead, my dad said we should’ve taken off from Darwin for a few days to visit the Outback and then met up with ship at one of our other Australian ports. But alas, we didn’t think of that plan early enough to make it happen. Too bad!
Welcome to the port of Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory
A baby freshwater croc
This bloke was wrestling a croc at the cruise ship terminal...impressive!
So, Australia has a Woolworths chain, but its grocery store
A marina in a Darwin suburb
Many of the trees were in bloom as we drove through town
I guess our Fall is their Spring is how it works in the Southern Hemisphere
I still haven't figured out if the toilets truly flush the opposite direction or not
The Northern Territory flag, which depicts the Southern Cross and the Desert Rose
Sweetheart, the 15 ft stuffed croc
My folks, with the city of Darwin behind
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