Darwin

I arrived in Darwin at about 3:30 in the morning. Darwin has the horriblest flight schedules that I have ever encountered. Most flights seem to come in or leave in the middle of the night. I guess there are flights that come and go during the day, but I was told they are quite expensive.

We were supposed to arrive at 4:00, but the cabin crew chief came on the intercom and proudly announced that we were 19 minutes ahead of schedule. Wow, I thought. How nice. So that meant I would have 19 more minutes to kill waiting for something useful to open so I could get settled and on to recuperating from a long day and night with no sleep. I personally didn't find the 19 minutes ahead of schedule to be overly helpful. But that was okay. I got to immigration and they had a problem because I had been in Australia 15 years ago and it messed up their records. So it took a few minutes to sort it out and get it all reconciled. Then I got to customs and the woman there asked me why I was only planning to be in Australia for 6 days. She didn't seem satisfied with an answer that that was all I was going to need for now. So I had to explain that going right to the Solomon Islands was too expensive for me to swallow, and I thought I would spend a few days in Darwin to break it up. She eventually seemed to be satisfied and I passed on to the inspection portion of things. And they pulled me aside and tossed my rack, so to speak. The guy put on his plastic gloves and took everything out of my bags. He had me empty my pockets and went through everything in my wallet. And he asked me all sorts of questions, including why I was only staying in Australia for 6 days. I was getting tired of explaining myself to these people and I was starting to feel quite violated as this twit went through my wallet looking at all my stuff. But I still managed to hold my tongue and not say anything that would not be helpful. (Something like, “Because I am feeling so welcome here,” or “Because Australia is obscenely expensive.”)

Eventually the violation was over and I got on a shuttle bus to downtown and then set about waiting for hostels to open. I sat outside a McDonald's for a while and then finally got to a hostel and registered. I got some flights settled and then I booked a tour to Kakadu National Park.

And then I set out to explore Darwin a bit. I saw the government building of the Northern Territory. 

I went to the waterfront and looked out at Darwin Bay. And I found out about some of the history of Darwin during World War II. There is quite a lot of it. Darwin was bombed in February 1942, by the same Japanese squadron that bombed Pearl Harbor, and sustained more damage. One ship went down with all hands, but was still firing its guns as it sank beneath the waves. They salvaged the ship at one point and pulled one of the guns out and made a monument to the ship with it.

I also remembered that some places have grass. And people can walk on the grass. And sit on nice shaded benches to read or just enjoy the day. They have some nice parks in Darwin.

Finally I walked back into downtown and found out that Darwin is a bit of an anachronism. It is way behind the way the world works these days. It closes at 5 pm. Shops close, even souvenir shops. A lot of them close earlier than 5. The place is a bit of a ghost town by early evening. It was very odd actually. They have this nice pedestrian shopping area right in the heart of downtown and at 6 pm it was practically empty. But it is still a nice little town. And it was a nice little visit.