Last Flight to Darwin

Well, probably not the last flight but probably our last visit. We arrived late in the afternoon, pleased to be in cooler climes than Broome. The temperature down a massive 2 degrees to 33! Just on dark we picked up our Skoda rental car and drove into downtown Darwin traffic. Skoda, being a European type car, decided to put the indicator lever on the wrong side of the steering column so our windscreen was well wiped by the time we found our apartment.

Saturday was race day at the local course so travelling with a horse owner/trainer practically guaranteed us a profitable time at the pay out window….didn’t it? There were 6 races on the card, almost all 1200 metres give or take 100 metres and the field generally numbered 6 horses. Picking a winner couldn’t be easier….could it? Yes it could! We never spent much money and although collectively we never came home jubilant I did come home with a little more money than I went with. This was not due to any of the aforementioned advantages that I had perceived but as usual due to a couple of misunderstandings and forgotten pre-researched winners that I had selected being left out due to brain fade at the tote window.

There was plenty to do in Darwin and we gave the Darwin museums a thorough inspection. We visited the Darwin Military Museum and the Aviation Museum. This museum houses a B52 bomber, it’s huge. An F1-11is parked under one wing, they’re pretty darn large up close. Darwin has a dogged war history being bombed by 242 Japanese aircraft 10 weeks after Pearl Harbour. 236 people were killed and 11 ships sunk. There is a lot of history in the town about Darwin in February 1942, they still seem a little aggrieved that the Japanese surprised them 80 odd years ago. In the evening we dined with Pam and Sandy’s friends at the “Ski Club”. We thought that sounded a bit cooler than the 33 degrees that had enveloped us since arriving but there was no snow in sight….water skiing it was. I’m sure Iain Bill would have been impressed.

We headed south to Litchfield National Park for a look, in our trusty Skoda….with the very clean windscreen. Very different to National Parks in our land of wet and green. This seemed to be a cooling off spot for Dawinians on the weekend. We never got our togs wet but there were a few who did.

We made a daylight start in quest of an Esky full of fish on Tuesday morning. Our skipper took us well across the bay but never more than a couple of kms from shore looking for barramundi, or anything unfortunate enough to get hooked. We caught a variety of species although nothing worthy of display over the fire place. We got enough for two meals.  Sandy cooked them to perfection, which he has done again and again. A great day on which we observed a birthday for Diana ……but we didn’t really celebrate.

One more museum type visit beckoned on our last afternoon. Two nurses among us convinced the entire party that a visit to the Royal Flying Doctor Service and Bombing of Darwin Tourist Facility, would be time well spent even though it was near closing. It seemed interesting enough on entering but we were quickly fitted with a skull cap and goggles, a bit like snorkel goggles with head phones. “Take a seat” the man said which we did. We were then chucked in the hold of a ship, the Japanese started bombing the wharf and before we knew it we were on the wing of Curtiss P-40 Warhawk flying with an American hellbent on taking out 100 Japanese Zero aircraft (made by Mitsubishi). We got shot down almost immediately and then I was gasping for breath at the bottom of Darwin Harbour. Eventually exited my skull cap sweating profusely pleased that the bombing had stopped and back on dry ground, exhausted.

On our last day we had a couple of hours to spare before flying out to Brisbane so went back to the RFDS and climbed into another skull cap. Same result, sweating and exhausted…these virtual experiences are virtually fair dinkum. Off to Brisbane.