Darwin was indeed, exactly as prepared for Japanese attack on February 19, 1942 as Pearl Harbour was almost 3 months earlier. We were able to repeat their mistakes.  In 1939, Churchill had asked Australia for “all our best” so we’d sent them, leaving behind “all our not-so-best”.  The different services didn’t talk to each other if they could avoid doing so, to the extent that the advance report of hundreds of planes heading our way was simply not passed on “for a while”.  Once passed on, it was ignored and the assumption was made that so many planes must belong to the Americans.  On top of that, these inscrutable Japs came from the “wrong” direction – our paltry defences were facing out to sea and they flew in across the land!  Hindsight is a marvellous thing, but this was catastrophic at pretty much every level.  It really must have felt like the eve of destruction. 

Nobody has an accurate figure of how many died in this first spectacularly successful attack (major comms, wharf and airport destroyed) so various memorials record different numbers in the region of 240.  More enlightening is that great chunks of the population, notably Chinese and aborigines, didn’t even make the count, so double it!  For perspective, Australia lost 523 in Vietnam and 339 in Korea (numbers probably less dodgy).

A weirdly wonderful bus ride, museum visit and harbour cruise all about the bombing of Darwin and the aftermath supplied most of this information, conveyed in a matter-of-fact manner which served to emphasise both the destruction and the rampant incompetence.  I loved it!

But, don’t mention the war!  Darwin had lots more to offer and we were anxious to see some of it.  We’d parked the van in a paddock about 15km out of town (another HipCamp).  Unlike some previous adventures, this was a delightful, spacious, shady, private spot and our hosts, Liz and Paul were fantastic – even bringing us firewood that we didn’t really need but were delighted to receive.  Nothing quite like a campfire – especially when it’s 30°.  The only downside was that it was sort-of on the flight path and the airport is also military.  On the upside, we saw a couple of those insane vertical takeoff planes with the huge tilting propellers (V-22 Osprey, I think).  Amazing.  Lesley remained unimpressed.

Thanks to a Knox recommendation, we took ourselves off to sunset drinks and dinner at the Trailer Boat Club (!) which overlooks the glorious, sandy sweep of Fannie Bay.  Lots of people, lots of buzz and it afforded a fantastic sunset.  Couldn’t have been nicer, but we later learned that possibly even better is the Waterski Club offering – welcome to Darwin! 

The following story might be true?  SA (South Australia, not Africa) Surveyor General, George Goyder had been entranced by Fannie Caradini’s opera singing (a euphemism, one assumes) and named this gorgeous bay after her.  His wife, Frances, was less than pleased, so he compensated by naming another bay in Darwin after her – fortunately for both of them, Frances never got to see that her namesake bay was just a murky swamp.

We went to the sunset markets at Mindl but our biorythyms must have been out.  It felt like tourist tat, fried food and trailer trash.  We genuinely disliked it and left quickly, but we know of perfectly sensible people who think otherwise. We took yet another sunset cruise (will they never learn?) with prawns and champagne – sounds terrific but was only just “fine”. 

Finally, much much better, was Sue Reid’s pointer to a fabulous restaurant called Ella by Minoli.  Apparently, Minoli was a crowd favourite on Masterchef (that means she didn’t win) and her Sri Lankan flavoured restaurant, literally and very unpromisingly buried in the bowels of a CBD carpark, was cooking up a storm 👍👍.  Great flavours, great service, great night…and we’re back on track.

That good track took us to Litchfield NP for a lovely day of hiking, swimming, sightseeing, more hiking, more swimming…and crocodile avoidance at Lower Cascades.  There was zero publicity, but the jungle drums told us that there had been a mild croc attack (geez – mild!?) at the lower level, thus explaining its closure.  All a bit embarrassing for Parks NT who are meant to keep track of these poor benighted reptiles and no doubt, more than a bit painful for the victim – don’t worry; he’s probably fine!  Magnificent crystal clear water and absolutely no crocs – that we saw.

Darwin was also maintenance central.  We had the car/truck comprehensively serviced, we bought it new tyres and replaced its windscreen (just starred, not smashed, by a regular car on a regular road, but that’s what insurance is for).  ATGANI was working well, so required no attention.  Wine supplies were running low and with deprivation ahead of us, we stocked up. Smiley face!

Our time in Darwin was running out and despite a couple of hiccups, we’d liked it a lot.  It seemed to us that a huge population of government employees (including military) keep it going, overseen by a territory government that is neither state nor local nor federal, but federal is where the generous funding comes from.  The Parliament building is a big white confection, locally called the wedding cake, not because of its looks but because it’s “full of fruits and nuts and alcohol”.  I was reminded of a lovely but eccentric man I met here in the mid 90’s who’d become rich re-plumbing Darwin after Cyclone Tracy.  He’d successfully gone into the video rental business but my abiding memories are of the 400mm deep concrete gutter across his back yard that allowed his barramundi to swim up and down and the bottle of elderly Grange that he served me straight out of the fridge (yep, it was undrinkable).  Ahhh, Darwin!

It was easy to get from Darwin to Kununurra – a mere 500km, with an overnighter at Victoria River Roadhouse (if you’ve been paying attention, just like Barkly Homestead Roadhouse, only less so) and, of course, a quick de-fruit&veg at the border (again, will they never learn?).  We were about to embark on a 2 week cruise from Kununurra (OK, Wyndham) to Broome.  We knew that we had booked the smallest, bottom-most cabin on quite a small boat (30 passengers), we knew that we’d paid a heavily discounted rate thereby reducing the price to merely extortionate, we knew that the weather report for the next few days was “wild and windy” and we knew just about nothing else at all.  What could possibly go wrong?