A Day in Darwin

Monday 11^th July

A slower pace today – we headed into the centre of Darwin and took a lovely walk along the Esplanade (of course the walk was interrupted by a half hour toilet search). The it was a quick lunch of barra and chips and the down to Dr’s Gully to watch the fish feeding.

Luke particularly loved feeding the fish and even Sam touched one – he was so cute when he was describing how slimey they were that I thought I would try and get the description on video – of course once the camera was on he refused to talk – I have such co-operative kids!

The fish feeding was pretty impressive – the numbers and size of some of the fish were incredible and we all had fun sitting in the hot sun throwing bread out to them.

After feeding the fish their lunch we went to the Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery – while the art gallery didn’t do much for me personally, the museum was fantastic. There was a big section on the animals found up here and a stuffed 8m croc with a video on how it was caught. Then we went into the part I had really been looking forward to – the Cyclone Tracy exhibit. Cyclone Tracy is one of my earliest memories so I found it fascinating to see the original news bulletin and see replicas of the rooms that would have been in houses back then (was great to show the kids things like a dial telephone).

The kids found the sound booth great – a recording done of the actual cyclone hitting. I don’t think they could fully appreciate though how terrifying it must have been.

Once we finished at the museum we had to head back to the campground because we had a mobile welder coming at 3.30pm to fix the jockey wheel. Sadly just as we drove in he rang to say he wasn’t going to be able to make it that afternoon and could he come the following morning. The kids didn’t mind their sightseeing being cut short for no reason – they got to come grocery shopping! Of course they came under sufferance with the promise of a swim as soon as we got back. So in the end it wasn’t a complete waste of time coming back early because it meant we actually have food to eat for the next few days.