Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia

 

March 10, 2025

I’ve just posted my latest blog after losing it enroute to Darwin.  So, I’m composing this on MS Word in hopes that it doesn’t happen again. 

Don't mess with 
Crocodile Dandee!

While enroute from Yorkeys Knob to Darwin, a three-day sea voyage, our steward, Regine, collected our passports (mandatory) to be held until we clear Hong Kong, after first visiting Manila.  Not sure why this is necessary, but I didn’t like giving up our passports to anyone. 

We continue up the NE coast of Australia and turn westerly to get around Cape York which is the northernmost point of the Australian continent in the state of Queensland.  The cape juts north-northeast from the peninsula into Torres Strait, which separates it from the island of New Guinea.  In my previously uneducated mind, I kind of assumed Australia was sitting out there away from everybody not realizing it had all these close Indonesia neighbors.

We have had great weather again on the seas.  One night I was awakened by a thunderstorm, which Sue never heard.  But I was sure it happened when I checked outside in the morning and everything was wet from the rain.

We arrived in Darwin, which was named after Charles Darwin, the British naturalist who had sailed to this area in the 1830s while working on his theory of evolution by natural selection.

Darwin Wharf

 His time here had a key influence on how species adapt to their environments and evolve over time.  He, in part, focused on the duck-billed platypus, which I guess is understandable.  It was predicted to be another very warm and humid day.  And as we left the air-conditioned environs of our ship, we were feeling it.

Darwin is the capital city of Northern Territory (NT), Australia.  NT is the home of the famous Ayers Rock, but it is located in the SW corner of the territory about 1200 miles from Darwin, so we won’t be visiting.  When we arrived in Darwin, we set our clocks back 30 minutes.  Yes, 30 minutes.  We experienced this once before when we were touring St. John’s Newfoundland.  It is not as uncommon as you might think.  There are even a few areas where the time change is 45 minutes.  So, we are now 9.5 hours ahead of my home state of Iowa.

We did not schedule any excursions here because none of what was available didn’t appeal to us.  So, we just planned on going ashore, exploring and doing some geocaching to get a taste of the area.  The ship provided a shuttle to the downtown area, a 10 to15 minute ride.  We will be here two days, one more than originally scheduled to make up for the lost day in Brisbane.

Darwin is not a huge city, it is the capital city of the Northern Territory and has a little over half of the territory’s population, about 150,000.   Our shuttle drops us off at the Visitor’s Center mid-town and we set out to do some Adventure Lab geocaching which takes us around the area to different murals that are present all around the downtown area. 

Quite an impressive display actually.  We complete the Adventure, but we need a regular type cache to get the Northern Territory virtual souvenir.

  So, we head for the nearest one which is in an alley and somewhere in the water main coming up out of the ground.  We search and don’t seem to find it and an employee of the adjoining store comes out and asks us if we need help finding something.  We explain that we are geocachers and she seems to understand.  Anyway, she doesn’t call the cops and we keep looking and finally find the cache on the other side of the alley, magnetically attached to the underside of a piping system.  We earn our NT souvenir!

 By this time, we are really feeling the heat which is all of the 91 degrees predicted.  We found a sports bar, and Sue gets a ginger beer and I get another XXXX lager that I enjoyed at Airlie Beach.  We drink our beer while watching a rugby game and have no clue what is going on. 

My hair is way beyond needing to be cut.  I found out that it cost US$59 for a haircut on board.  No thank you very much!  So, we googled for a barber shop and found one that charged AU$30.  A bargain??  Absolutely!  The barber was a Greek immigrant who came here at 16 and set up his shop.  He butchered me pretty much but who cares.  He was entertaining and talked about having relatives in Canada and the U.S.  I gave him AU$40 and was happy to do it. 

Afterwards, Sue finds a souvenir shop and contributes to the local economy.  We wanted to find a grocery store to get some tonic for my G&Ts and some diet Pepsi. 

Sue contributing

We go into a Coles grocery store and find all that we need.  I was originally going to get some peanut butter which I was craving and could not find on the ship.  But just before we arrived, I found that they do have it on board if you know where to look.  There are several things that I routinely eat at home that are not available here and I find that I’m increasingly anxious to get back home and do my own cooking!

We make our way back to the shuttle bus area and return to the Queen after about four hours of suffocating heat and humidity.

 

Tuesday, March 11, 2025, Southern Hemisphere

Another day in Darwin and the weather is a repeat of yesterday.   Our first order of business was to find the cache just outside the wharf area in a hedge row of meticulously manicured bushes. 

Sue signing the log

It wasn’t where we thought it would be but after listening to Sue read the provided hint, I spotted it straight away (English term, I’ve picked up along with the Australian G’day greeting).  We logged the find and boarded our shuttle back to the mall area where hoards of merchants waited for you to part with your dollars, whatever country you were from.

Sue spotted another Adventure Lab which took us to the NT Parliament House.  The Supreme Court building was also located just across the street.  The AL was inside the parliament building, and we had to go through security to get inside.  It was a beautiful building with nicely landscaped grounds, in fact, a crew was trimming the palm trees located near the entrance.

A worker is suspended up
 there trimming!

   The AL took us throughout the building requiring answers to questions you had to be there to answer. 

Inside Parliament House

We took a few photos before heading to the mall district and more shopping.

Outside Parliament House

After another hour or so of looking and looting, we had had enough and walked back to our shuttle area.  It was good to get back in the A/C ship and out of the heat and humidity.

This visit wasn’t really exciting, but it was a nice break from a busy touring schedule.  Darwin has a lot to offer, it was clean, modern and growing.  I would visit again.

Next stop:  Manila, in five days.