Discovering Darwin

Too Hot to Walk

A free day in Darwin and my neck and back feel much better. We headed off for a walk along the harbour front. We weren't going to swim as generally in Darwin you can't swim in the sea due to venomous box jellyfish and saltwater crocodiles! Although they have created a safe area with a sea wall, to keep those critters out, we still decided against a swim.

The walk seemed like a good idea as the temperature was below 30C however we forgot it was a tropical climate so very humid and according to the Internet was soon 30C but feels like 38C. Walking was hard work, getting a lift down to the seafront seemed like a good idea until we had to climb the steps back up. I think we were sweating out quicker than we could drink our water. After about 90 minutes we agreed it was madness so did a bit of shopping and had lunch, before heading back to the hotel for a pool swim and chill!

Bar Rules and Pokies

As we've been travelling in Australia, I've seen lots of signs at bars for pokies and assumed these were some sort of food, maybe Aussie barbie sausages? Today at lunch there was sign on a door, bar pokies and when someone went in, I saw that pokies are fruit machines!

I find the rules in Australia very strange. You can't seem to order food and drinks in the same place at a lot of bars. Today when we tried to get some dollars from the currency exchange at the Post Office their machine wouldn't accept first direct bank cards so I said I would use my Australian dollars but the lady said we can't take cash as we don't exchange money!

Darwin's War History

We enjoyed a tour of Darwin followed by a boat trip. It was all based on WW2 and mainly the bombing of Darwin in 1942 by the Japanese. Although the bus part did also cover a bit of general Darwin detail which was interesting. The tour was an excellent 4 to 5 hours and we learnt lots. They have a war museum which we stopped at for an hour but we could have been there all day, really interesting. It also included a section of the holocaust, which was incredibly moving.

The boat trip was fun, although the sea did get a bit choppy, and we saw the sights of the first wave of the WW2 bombing. Apparently there is currently a nuclear submarine in the harbour which we didn't see but there was an awful lot of naval activity suggesting the US submarine was still nearby.