24 March 2013 - Aurora Shady Glen Tourist Park, Darwin, Northern Territory

We woke to yet more rain this morning however it was not as torrential as yesterday afternoon and the park grounds had managed to swallow any surface water up. It soon cleared but I was not prepared to do any laundry and leave it to the whim of the weather, so we headed out with the eski packed to pursue our original travel plan for the day, prepared to  abandon or amend plans if necessary.

Our first port of call was the Charles Darwin National Park, just a few kilometres from our camp, an area of thirteen square kilometres of scrub running down into the coastal mangroves established as a national park in 1998 .

Apart from having been a traditional spot for aboriginals to gather food and camp, this place gained importance during the war years as part of the network of military sites established during the development of Darwin as Australia’s World War II northern defense line. The bunkers and shelters were used for storage between 1941 and the mid-1980s, and there are still eleven of these bomb dumps, basically partly buried Nissan huts, all locked and barred from the public except for one at the park entrance. In this, there is an excellent exhibition and series of interpretative panels about the history of the site. Further on into the park, beyond the warnings signs about theives and biting insects, there is a very pleasant picnic spot from where one has superb views across the mangroves to Darwin’s modern CBD.

We took a short wander down the hill and around the park, found more bunkers and several feisty lizards, then returned to the landcruiser perspiring and satisfied we had taken some exercise, albeit brief.

One of the many bunkers

In Darwin itself, we made our way to the Chinese Temple and adjacent Chinese heritage museum where we learned about the history of the Chinese people who came for the gold discovered while the OTL was being constructed in the early 1870s and stayed to become the mainstays of Darwin and the Northern Territory. The museum is full of photos and personal stories about Chinatown, the commerce of these industrial settlers, their contribution to the war effort and integration and discrimination through the years. It is manned by volunteers, one chap the descendant of one of those original main families, considered as “aristocratic” as those who came on the First Fleet or the Mayflower. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to this small museum and left after nearly two hours. The temple alongside is the replacement of the original, rebuilt after Cyclone Tracy. Tradition decrees that a temple can only be rebuilt after “an act of God” and devastation of World War II did not fit, hence the devout had to wait for the mighty cyclone of 1974.

Views across the mangroves to Darwin's CBD

We decided to drive up and along the city’s coastline and soon found ourselves at the Cullen Bay Marina, a very smart development indeed. As we sat in the cruiser eating our lunch, we thought how incongruous the scene in front of us was, superb and luxurious yachts and residences, all so very Gold Coast or Hollywood, when we were just across the water from Indonesia, from where there might have been some influence as to the architecture and general feel of the place. But no, Darwin is Australia through and through, albeit a very tropical section of it.

Chris had no memory of this part of Darwin at all; reading the billboards it was soon evident why. Before the 1980s Cullen Bay was simply a spread of mudflats and mangroves, no doubt a haunt of crocodiles and bush-hunters and all at the mercy of Darwin’s renowned giant eight metre tides.

Cullen Bay Marina

Along came a couple of entrepreneurs with a plan who saw the potential for a marine development with good access to the Darwin harbour. Applications were lodged in 1983 and after more than ten years, works on the biggest private project ever undertaken in Darwin finally began. It is quite delightful especially if you enjoy seeing the handiwork of man; the lock is operational and no doubt costs a packet to run. Good on them, I say. However I prefer the hand of nature. (Maybe that is simply sour grapes since I choose not to own and sail a large yacht and dine on marina decks.)

Chris had spoken several times of the Top End Folk Club and the fun they all had way back when. Their regular meeting and performance place was a gun emplacement on the coast and so we were in pursuit of yet another “shrine” to his memory. This time we were rewarded because right next to the Darwin Military Museum on East Point Reserve is this great concrete monolith seemingly unchanged from 1972 except for the fact that the grounds all about are well tended rather than a wilderness of weeds.

The two massive guns, the largest in Australia, were installed at this post at East Point in 1944 to repel the anticipated invasion by Japan. The guns themselves are long gone but there are excellent interpretative panels all about explaining the significance of the area. The Museum is probably worth a visit; we shall see how our plans pan out. Needless to say, my husband was delighted to find one of his old stamping grounds pretty much as he had left it.

Looking for the ghosts of the Top End Folk Club

We drove on north, now through the suburbs, stopping at Nightcliff for yesterday’s national paper and on to Casuarina where there is a shopping centre worthy of any state capital. Here we indulged in a soft serve from the Scottish Restaurant and watched the locals, all looking as diversified and regular as any crowd on a Sunday outing at an urban mall.

Ten kilometres back on new road took us the full circle and we arrived with time to read the paper, write The Blog, have a swim, all before the evening routine. The swim did not eventuate because the afternoon storm came and as I write this, the rain is pounding on the roof, we are surrounded in yet another sea of tropical rain and thunder crashes all around. Darwin!!!