AUSTRALIA - DAY TWENTY FOUR - Darwin

Previous Blogs: Day 1 Portland & Honolulu | Day 2 Oahu | Day 3+4 Melbourne | Day 5 Williamstown | Day 6 Launceston | Day 7 Cradle Mountain | Day 8 Road to Hobart | Day 9 Port Arthur | Day 10 Apollo Beach | Day 11 Port Fairy | Day12+13 Southern Ports | Day 14 Kangaroo Island | Day 15 Kangaroo Island | Day 16 Kangaroo Island | Day 17 Adelaide | Day 18 Adelaide | Day 19 Adelaide Hills | Day 20+21 Uluru | Day 22+23 Alice Springs | Day 24 Darwin | Day 25 Darwin | Day 26+27 Port Douglas | Day 28 Daintree | Day 29+30 Gold Coast | Day 31+32 Brisbane | Day 33 Brisbane | Day 34-36 Hawaii

Click photos for a larger image...

The hotel in Darwin is very pleasant with a great view of the waterfront.

Unfortunately we woke up to a steady drizzle of rain which sucks for photos (and hiking) but we soldier on anyway! We were also super tired because we stayed up until 4 am watching the President's Inauguration on Sky News live - sometimes a 15 1/2 hour time difference is REALLY inconvenient!!!

Watching TV in OZ is kinda fun, there is NO censorship, you can say the F word, S word, or the grabbing P word, whatever word, no problem!

Nice room, microwave, stove, dishwasher nice balcony.

And a great view from the balcony.

Although a nice hotel, the internet sucks! They want $40 for wifi!! ARGH! I am not paying that! The city offers free wifi downtown and being on the 19th floor, we can pick it up on our balcony, but it is very patchy and just uploading this blog took an hour.

One thing about being on the 19th floor balcony, there are no bugs, which is a welcome relief, especially after Alice Springs where sitting on our balcony was like being the bottom of the food chain in the insect kingdom!

Alamo gave us an upgrade to a full-size car from the mid-size we booked, so we got a comfortable Camry.

We are not in the Outback anymore! We are in the sub tropics and you can see the difference in the vegetation, it is lush.

It is still HOT! But a humid sweating hot just like Florida in summer, so we feel at home.

Darwin, like Uluru, is in the Northern Territory State and is a hour behind Victoria and hour and half behind Sydney. NT has only 4 real cities and Darwin is the biggest with just 110,000 people.

Beaches are interesting here, they have grass areas to picnic on then you get the beach. Lovely, no sand in your food.

And then this beach is pretty rocky.

Not every day you see trees growing in salt water.

No every day you see a boat launch directly into the ocean.

And yet another interesting looking bird we have never seen before. Wendy calls him the yellow turkey gobbler.

The white in the rocks you see above is actually chalk! You can break a piece off it and write with it.

Then we went to the Charles Darwin National Park. Both the City, Harbor, Park and many other things here were named because of Charles Darwin the famous scientist whose theories of evolution changed the entire world's thinking. He never set foot in Australia, though, the area was named by the first English visitor to Darwin, who was a traveling companion and friend of Darwin's and decided to name the place after his friend.

Both Wendy and I are fans of Charles Darwin.

View of the city from the park.

Then it was time to go to the town of Humpty Doo. Yip, that's it's name and the only reason we went there. We had lunch at the Humpty Doo hotel bar.

Then it was time to explore the Darwin Waterfront as the skies had started to open and the sun was finally coming out.  The little blue box is a ringer that lets you know you can pick up your food.  On it it says:  WHERE'S MY FOOD!!!

They have a pier you can drive out on, and park with a choice of several restaurants.

Darwin downtown does not have a natural beach, it is all rocky. So no problem, they built a man made beach instead and even a wave pool to make you think you are swimming in the ocean!

Looks like fun, entry is only $5.00

I seriously doubt DMV in the States would approve this plate!

Also.. it begs the thought that the owner is certainly making a target of him or herself for the cops!

NO store front? NO problem!

Just park your refrigerated truck alongside the highway and sell your meat to motorists passing by!

There are a lot of drive through liquor stores in Australia...

Express lane 1 is for when you know exactly what you want.

Express lane 2 is for when you THINK you know what you want.

Browse Lane is for when you have no clue as to what you want!

And it wouldn't be Australia unless there was something out there that will bite your ass!!!

They have bloody SALT WATER crocodiles here!! This is not your sleepy Florida alligator!