10. – 23. August

Now it was really time to travel to Darwin. We just stopped briefly in Katherine (we have to come across Katherine on our way west again) and then had to drive through a bush-fire  - was not the first and won’t be the last. It was unbelievable how hot and eerie it was. Suddenly the visibility dropped to 10m and you had some ashes flying at the windscreen. But I believe this fire belonged to “controlled burning” to reduce the risk and severity of wild bushfires later in the dry season.

When we arrived in Darwin we took care of the car and ourselves. The car got a wash (inside and outside) and a wax and we took time to go to the gym and relax in the swimming pool.

The freshwater springs were visited as well – you have to use every possibility to swim. The ocean is off-limits as there might be crocs around and stingers are not far either. The humidity can rise to up to 100% (normally just in the wet season although we had days with 60% humidity) so you start sweating just by being outside doing nothing. The pool in the Howard Springs Nature Reserve was closed due to renovations (I guess they have to work on the weir which was constructed during 2nd world war). So we could only watch the fishes and the turtles swimming around – this meant we had to find another freshwater swimming hole.

So we drove to Berry springs. This Reserve offers good swimming, walking tracks as well as wood-BBQ’s. This means as well it can get really crowded and you might have to come back another time. But we were lucky and could enjoy the water and the free massage of the waterfall. The swimming hole is fed by a waterfall as well as some springs.

As Darwin was hit hard during the 2nd world war (several air raids) you can visit a lot of war memorials and military museums. The war memorials are often airstrips which were constructed within months and plaques showing sunken ships… You could also visit the oil tunnels which were created to store the oil after the above ground ones were bombed. We had a look at the military museum at East Point Reserve which shows several machine guns (used by the Japanese and Allies), several ship models and some uniforms. In the outside area they had several guns including the 9.2” guns which were built to protect the coastline.  You could also see part of the anti-submarine-net which was erected across the harbour.

In the aviation museum a B52 is on display. This should be the only B52 display outside the US. The bomber covers the whole hangar and the other airplanes (spitfire, tiger-moth, helicopter and other smaller planes) are placed under the wings… You could also watch a video about the bombings of Darwin (which is luckily different to the one at the military museum) and one about the B52 itself.

Have fun,

Cheers, Tom and Anja