It was a pretty restless night and even though we didn't keep the air conditioning on we did keep it on "Fan" to keep the air circulating. It was warmish that's for sure.
We had decided to make an early start on sightseeing today so that we could get it done before the day got really hot. Thankfully there was quite a strong breeze with a little bit of cool air in it which helped.
After having a visit from the local budgies, we picked Alan up and headed off for a bit of a drive. The unscheduled random tour included WWII Quarantine Anti-Aircraft Site, the Railway Station where the Ghan arrives in Darwin, Fisherman's Wharf, The WWII Oil Tunnels, a drive through some of the residential areas at Cullen Bay, Burnett House and then a drive around to East Point where Shane and Alan went in to check out the War Museum.
I can't begin to imagine what life would have been like for the soldiers that manned this post during the war. To start with, the bombing of Darwin was in February and the weather in January and February is dominated by tropical monsoons, bringing heavy continuous rain setting in for days at a time. Average rainfall for January is nearly 400mm with February not far behind at about 300mm. Although the rains bring relief from the hot humidity you would hazard a guess that shelter would be basic and boredom would be high on the list.
Fisherman's Wharf and the entire area around this is superbly set up with plenty of parking and cafes/restaurants here and there throughout. It is picturesque and I'm sure you could spend a lot more time looking around than we did. Of course with Kitty in the car we are limited to what we can do and how long we can stop, but that's OK because we see enough to get a sense of everything.
Below is one of the border patrol boats.
This beast was shipping LPG gas to Asia.
The Deckchair Cinema is a novel concept and we would have gone but sadly - No Puppies!
The WWII Oil Tunnels were quite interesting to wander through - Alan and I ventured in while Shane played dogsitter. 11 above ground oil storage tanks were originally built on Stokes Hill but Japanese air-raids in 1942 destroyed 7 of the 11 tanks. So the tunnels were built below the cliffs of Darwin City in the Darwin Wharf Precinct to protect the oil stored in Darwin from further Japanese bombing. Unfortunately so much for the best laid plans, as three years later peace was declared. With 6 tunnels completed the risk from bombing had gone and the tunnels never actually stored oil. The tunnels were numbered 1, 5, 6, 10 and 11 with tunnel 3 located in Fort Hill which is now non-existent. The numbering of the tunnels suggest that a total of 11 tunnels were planned. The one you can walk into is 172 metres long and exhibits various boards of information along the walk to the end.
We then meandered through the Cullen Bay area looking at properties - I could probably force myself to live in this little beauty that was for sale..... Expressions of Interest sought - we figured we could come up with a couple of thousand on the spot......... unfortunately no lotto win yet!
Also found this fascinating tree. The bottom of it was something I've never seen before.
Obviously the tide comes in pretty quickly here as the recession of the water was huge - but not enough to put these surfers off a very long walk to the water.
It was a very warm day indeed so we were happy to get back to the caravan and the air conditioning. Later that evening we ventured out to the Mindle Market. This time I opted for dogsitting duties while Shane & Alan took in the famous Mindle Beach Sunset. I must admit that the last time I went to the market - although the food was interesting - the market itself was not holding a lot of interest for me and by account from Shane not much had changed.
128 km
Total - 5,487 km
Top today 32°c - expecting overnight 19°c
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