Today is Easter Monday and we are visiting Darwin. The weather today is hot and humid with brilliant sunshine. We have a simple tour planned today to get some appreciation of this northern city. It is very green with large trees, colourful flowers and various types of grass. It is the northernmost stop we will make. Some of the place names here reflect the early Dutch influence.
Darwin is a city with a long history except in its physical appearance. It was bombed heavily during 1942 and utterly destroyed by an enormous tropical cyclone that hit the city twice, both coming ashore and returning. It is believed that there are only about a dozen buildings that pre-date Cyclone Tracy. All buildings are now constructed to a standard dictated by the forces in a class 5 storm. There is a lot of solar power generated here and it is the law that all homes must use solar power to generate hot water.
Ted and Dave were our hosts on the city drive. Ted was from one of the local indigenous peoples and Dave was from Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. In addition to our human hosts we were greeted by an abundance of dragon flies, quite large dragon flies. None would be still for a photo sitting, sorry. We did see one medium sized python relaxing in a tree. Again, it was out of site before I could get the camera to the ready.
With the temperatures in the 30°C range now the pools have become well used. The main pools are fully exposed to the tropical sun so we tend to use a third which offers two benefits. It is covered but still outside, and it is adult only, not that there are very many children on board. For Gail there is a third advantage. It is quite near the ice cream shop.
Next stop, Broome!