Day 17/18: Two Days in Darwin

Arriving back in a city again after 2-1/2 weeks in the bush was bound to be challenging. We walked the spritzy waterfront in Darwin just before sunset feeling lost and disconnected. The disorderly fullness of the bush was replaced by tall monuments of steel, a nicely groomed and protected swimming lagoon and a span of restaurants with seriously overpriced menus.

Sixty dollars spent on two orders of fish and chips and two not-quite-ice-cold beers felt like an anti-climax to a fortnight of cooking for ourselves (mostly cold sandwiches and salads) -- a decidedly more thrifty, and healthy, way of feeding the body. But the walk around the waterfront at twilight was enjoyable, particularly with persistent lightening flashing amazing skyscapes in the storm clouds above the harbor.

Our last full day started with a cool sit in the Top End Windscreen customer lounge. The chip acquired on our second day out will cost $310 to fix. Still, it's cheaper than the extra $1500 they were asking for full coverage insurance. On this muggy day in Darwin, this isn't a bad place to hang for a few hours.

Fitted with a nice new windscreen, we head into Darwin for an afternoon of sight-seeing. We start out with another disappointing (too salty) meal at the Asian kiosk on the Stokes Hill Wharf. The view across the tropical bay at least provides some enjoyment. Constructed in 1895, the jetty was a prime target for the Japanese when they waged an intensive air strike on Darwin in February 1943. Few people may know that Darwin received more air strikes and greater loss of lives over an 18 month period than Pearl Harbor experienced. Much of the focus, however, was on American military ships in the northern port.

Next we visit the Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. Arriving later than intended, we have only an hour to view this amazingly comprehensive museum, which showcases flora and fauna native to the Top End, indigenous art from local Aboriginal communities, a gallery on Alfred Russel Wallace (a colleague of Charles Darwin who contributed significantly to the 'evolution of species' theory), and a fascinating exhibition on Cyclone Tracy, which ravaged Darwin on Christmas Day 1974. The sound box (a 2-metre square room in total darkness) was sensational for providing a first hand aural experience of what a cyclone sounds like when you're in the midst of it.

The Darwin Military Museum was next on our list, but the day was getting on so instead we opted for a walk along the shores of East Point, a delightful nature reserve on Darwin's east end. The setting sun in the west countered by another billowing lightening cloud in the east provided a pleasing finale to our Darwin Day -- and a gentle, if somewhat sorrowful, ending to our eighteen day Kimberley journey.

 The only croc we ever saw in the Northern Territory...

Darwin skyline

Day 16 - Leaving the Outback

By now it's probably pretty clear that I love water. One of my principle pleasures of life in the hot outback is the freedom it affords this water-loving traveller to enjoy getting wet, repeatedly, without the threat of ending up shivering and having to don layers of clothes. Moving between wet and dry is effortless and a supreme pleasure.

Such was our last day in the wilderness. After packing up camp at Wongi Falls we drove back up the Litchfield Highway and stopped at Florence Falls. A one-kilometre track took us up and through a savannah (dry) forest and then down into a tropical rainforest along the river that fed the falls. Water flowed, gurgled and shimmied through curvaceous rock pools and meanderings through the dense dripping natural gardens. At the falls, yet another deep pool provided an excellent swimming spot for hot tourists -- of which there were a few too many for our liking.

We moved from there to the Buley Rockhole, a spot a bit further up the river. The span of rockpools spread wider here and so did the tourists, each finding their own little nook or cranny to take a delightful plunge in. We found one as close to perfection as you can get in the wild: spanning eight or ten metres across and lined with smooth orange flat rocks, perfect for lounging, the pool quickly dropped into an abyss maybe ten or twelve feet deep. Clear, cool, continuously fed by a soft-falling water source that kept it clean and pure. I turned into a water seal and swam deep and long in this watery bliss.

And that was the pinnacle and end of our outback journey. Though curious about Darwin, my enthusiasm for spending time in a 'cosmopolitan city' (which it advertises itself as, despite it's relatively puny size: 125,000 occupants) isn't high. Checking into the Hidden Valley Caravan Park just outside of town felt a bit like taking a child who's had a free reign in the glorious outdoors, back into the confinement of her home, with all its rules, regulations and orderliness. The grouchy lady who checked us in could have been someone's mother, tired of her relentless captivity in work and chores, silently resenting the child who has the freedom to play and be wild.