Darwin

It’s Sunday Morning and the heaven's have opened up; Zeus is throwing lighting bolts from the sky with tremendous force causing thunder that rumbles with a deep bass which it’s vibrations can be felt in our tent as the rain beats down upon us.  It’s been threating to rain for over a week in Darwin and it has finally arrived. So as we sit in our tent waiting for the rain, thunder and lighting to subside, we thought what better time to write up our blog.

The first port of call on our way into Darwin was the Adelaide River jumping crocodile tour. It was a last minute decision to pull in as had no idea what to expect. So after performing a emergency stop and causing all the stuff inside our car to fly all over the place. We were sitting on the boat about to head off. The tour itself was amazing, we got up close to these crocs as the tour guide fed them pork chops, attached to a rope at the end of a very long pole! We were advised at all times to keep our arms,legs and heads inside of the boat and your understand why from the pictures below.





During the week we spent in Darwin we visited the following places

• WWII Oil Storage tunnels

The tunnels were built in 1943 after the first bombing of Darwin to protect the oil supplies.  One of the tunnels now hold a photo display paying tribute to the men and women  who served in Darwin during WWII

• Wave Pool at Darwin Waterfront

This was great fun with it’s 10 different wave patterns

• Mindil Beach Night Market

We went on the last night of the markets for 2012 so had the pleasure of seeing (and hearing) the Army ban play and see the fireworks. 

• Deckchair Cinema

This was a great experience,  and the film was OK.

• Stokes Hill Wharf

We tried some of the local delicacies here.

• Parap Market

• Darwin CBD – sorry no photo’s but its a very small city centre.
• Sky City Casino

The other time was spent either relaxing by the pool, getting supplies and odd jobs around the tent and car.

For us the highlight of our time in Darwin was the fishing charter we took.  We headed down to the dock early, sea sickness tablets in hand, excited and nervous as never of us are very experienced fishermen or Fish-o’s as the Locals say?.  With everyone on board we set off for the first location, and on James’ 2nd cast he hooked something, it wasn’t until Rob (the captain) came over and said it was big and got everyone else to get their lines out of the water, that we realised he might be right. James had to move to the back of the boat so he was able to follow the fish which ever way it decided to try to escape.  After about 10 mins of James reeling in and the “fish” taking off again, Rob decided it was probably a shark!!!!!! James keep going reeling in, the shark fighting and pulling away until finally it was at the surface and we got a glimpse of it. It was not only a shark but a hammer head shark over a metre long.  Rob offered to get the shark onto the platform at the back of the boat so we could get a photo. Just as James had handed the rod over the shark bit through the line and was gone .  Disappointed but to knackered to care to much, James carried on fishing.  Throughout the rest of the day we caught some  black jewfish, red emperor and I caught my own little black tip shark.  Luckily for us the guys on the boat filleted the jewfish for us and we had a fantastic meal that night.  We still had so much left we gave some to the people next to us at the campsite.