Blog 11 – Darwin and the Northern Territories

Blog 11 – Darwin and the Northern Territories

After our arrival last night, we had a full day to spend in Darwin.  Darwin is the capital and largest city of the Northern Territories. Located on the Timor Sea, it is, in fact, closer to Indonesia than Sydney.  The Northern Territories rejected a plan by the Australian government to become the 7^th state.  As such, although they are required by law to vote, they do not have any seats in Parliament.  Their elected officials just attend and observe Parliamentary sessions.

On 19 February 1942, Darwin was heavily bombed by 188 Japanese war planes.  This was the same fleet that had earlier bombed Pearl Harbor.  They incurred significant damage to the city and 243 people lost their life.  In total Darwin was bombed 66 times during WWII.  In addition to Darwin, the airport at Katherine also sustained some bomb damage.

And to add insult to injury, the town was devastated by Cyclone Tracy in on Christmas Eve 1974.  Although the second-smallest tropical cyclone on record, it killed 71 people and did approximately $4.94 billion US dollars.  It destroyed more than 70% of Darwin’s buildings, including 80% of houses.

After a relaxing morning reading through emails and repacking for our flight to Melbourne this evening, we took a taxi to the Defense of Darwin and Military Museum to learn more about the events leading up to the bombing and the devastation that followed it.  It was an interesting experience, one that Bill thoroughly enjoyed.

Build-up to WWII

Japanese Attack Plan

Bombings of Darwin

From there we went to the airport where we had to wait about 2 hours until we could check our bags.  The flight to Melbourne took about 4 hours, but I had upgraded us to their Economy X so we had additional leg room.  And as a bonus the middle seat was unoccupied.  The wine and beer on this flight was complimentary but the snack was un-edible, unless you were a vegetarian.  We landed in Melbourne at midnight, took the Skybus back to Melbourne and were finally in our hotel room at 1:30 am.  Time for a good night’s sleep.