HOWARD SPRINGS / DARWIN

We have had a very pleasant few days since the last blog. We have had an oil change (well - the car has, not us), checked out the Casuarina Shopping Centre, had haircuts, did washing and shopping and spent a day being tourists. We visited the Aviation Museum which was interesting. They have a B52 in the hangar. You don't realise how big they are until you are standing under or next to one. We had lunch on the Esplanade and walked along the Esplanade to view the Cenotaph (memorial to all persons involved in all wars, with a bit of an emphasis on WWII and the bombing of Darwin), and a couple of other memorials. We then drove to the Museum and Art Gallery which was very interesting. A great display about Cyclone Tracy. They have Sweetheart (crocodile) on display. He was very large but I have been reading about Sweetheart and there are some who believe they caught the wrong croc and Sweetheart was actually another croc captured by a chap in the same area. This other croc was named Cassius and was even bigger than Sweetheart.  Sweetheart lived in a lagoon/billabong and didn't like outboard motors. He would attack the motors but he didn't ever hurt a human being - even when he overturned the boats! They decided to capture him and after a long time and a lot of effort they did finally succeed but when towing him he accidentally drowned. The story of Sweetheart was really interesting and it was great to see the display.  This is the actual crocodile - not a replica. We then went to Mindil Market where we wandered around, saw all the stalls, watched a few buskers, had something to eat then decided it was getting too crowded for our liking so headed back home. We had a lovely last happy hour with our neighbours tonight. We are packing up tomorrow and heading to Litchfield National Park. There is still a lot of things in Darwin that we haven't seen but we will save them until next time. It will give us a good excuse to come back again.

US warship leaving Darwin Harbour

The cenotaph on the Esplanade, Darwin. If you look closely you will see Royce at the back left. There is a curved walkway with a large number of plaques dedicated to pretty much all the people involved in defending Australia and in particular Darwin in WWII

We went to a cafe to have a coffee and this is what we received. You can't really tell from this but it was like a small bucket! The coffee was quite nice.

Sweetheart. Sorry about the quality - photo was taken with my phone. He is well over 5m long!