AUSTRALIA - DAY TWENTY FIVE - 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...

Today dawned bright and sunny - so much for weather forecaster in Australia!  They are just as wrong as the USA!

Darwin has a lot of war memorials all over the city from World War II. This is because the Japanese bombed the crap out of Darwin shortly after pearl Harbor. 242 Japanese aircraft dropped more bombs on Darwin than they did on pearl Harbor. Many ships were sank. Darwin was subjected to another 63 bombing raids before the war was over.

Our first mission was to find a statue of Wendy's beloved Charles Darwin. There was nothing at the government house or city park so we then tried the Charles Darwin University. Still no luck. There was nothing downtown so we finally had to give up.

We then stumbled upon a street market where we found veggies and fruits we have never seen before.  And we've eaten a lot of interesting foods over the years.

Darwin is a very isolated city. Only 110,000 people and the next closest larger city is Cairns, 1,000 miles away. And THAT city is not much bigger at 140,000 people. The closest big city is Adelaide or Brisbane 1,600 and 1,700 miles away respectively.

We decided to get out of the city and check out the surrounding beaches. Darwin itself just has that manmade beach, but real close to the city there are several nature preserves with well equipped parks on the beach. Once again we saw every single beach had a nice grassy area for picnicking.

We then found a beach that had these great cliffs made from rock, sandstone and chalk:

Every beach we went to had some sort of rocky outcrop.

A jetty to walk out over the rocks.

Once again trees growing on the beach.

Then we stopped for a picnic lunch...

What is it????

Fish and Chips, of course!

We found some critters on the beach... a crab in a shell, and then these sand balls are made by Sand Bubbler Crabs - the tiny balls are a byproduct of the crabs' snacking. They don’t eat the sand, but they do feed it through the bottom of an adapted mouth of sorts, filtering out all of the micronutrients that the high tide has brought in and dumped on the beach since their last feeding session. The crabs retreat into small burrows in the sand during high tide, and emerge every low tide to feed.

Wendy found a half dozen of these tiny sea biscuits.

Along with lots of coral and other shells.

Then it was time to to head back to the airport to catch our flight to Cairns. We only arrive well after midnight at our hotel so we have planned tomorrow as a rest up day. See ya the day after!

And finally...

Really? You are?

Who knew...

That's the suckiest boat launch ever. 

One wrong move - BUY BUY lower unit!

And just when you find a beach that does not have crocodiles you STILL cannot swim without something wanting to attack you!