Darwin (for Mar. 6)
Packing up this morning, Celeste realized that her purse was missing. She knew right away where it was. She had placed it in the room safe when we went for tour of the Olgas (March 3) because we wanted to use her backpack to carry our water and she didn’t want to drag her purse along. With the confusion of a hurried move after our late return, we forgot about it. A few phone calls cancelled her credit cards and located the purse. They will mail it tonight to the hotel, which we will return to in a few days. Whew!
Today was a travel day. We departed Alice Springs at 11:30, landed Darwin at 1:30, and were in our hotel before 2:30. We left Alice with clear skies and a forecast high of 35 degrees. The terrain appeared to be pretty much the same as we have seen the last few days. Within half an hour we ran into an undercast of thin cirrus cloud. From there on we were always over some kind of cloud that varied from thin to thick and undercast to broken. As a result I was not able to observe much terrain the rest of the way. Approaching Darwin, we broke out over thick forest with patches of row crops and orchards. It was 25 degrees and raining steadily at the airport, but, by the time we were settled into our room, the rain had let up to a light drizzle, so we went for a walk. By the time we returned just before 5:30, the sky was getting brighter although it was still very humid. Looks like tomorrow could be a nice day.
Our hotel is on the Esplanade, the main street along the shore, lined with hotels. As usual, there is a park along the shore. We took a path down to the shore that was like walking through the jungle with ferns and vines everywhere. The rocks on the shore were very colourful. I guess the combination of saltwater and erosion and sun causes all the different minerals to display different colours. No two were alike and they were all as beautiful as rocks can be.
The whole country of Australia is very proud of its war record. In WWI they had a nation building experience at Gallipoli similar to Canada’s experience at Ypres. Because of their geographical position in the world, they have a large interest in Southeast Asia and distinguished themselves in Vietnam. But their biggest patriotism is focused on WWII. They were on the front lines as the Japanese bombed Darwin in 1942 killing 252 people in one raid. There were 64 raids on Darwin in total and they dropped twice as many bombs here as they did on Pearl Harbour. That experience is very prominent in the monuments and tourist attractions in the city.
Today was a travel day. We departed Alice Springs at 11:30, landed Darwin at 1:30, and were in our hotel before 2:30. We left Alice with clear skies and a forecast high of 35 degrees. The terrain appeared to be pretty much the same as we have seen the last few days. Within half an hour we ran into an undercast of thin cirrus cloud. From there on we were always over some kind of cloud that varied from thin to thick and undercast to broken. As a result I was not able to observe much terrain the rest of the way. Approaching Darwin, we broke out over thick forest with patches of row crops and orchards. It was 25 degrees and raining steadily at the airport, but, by the time we were settled into our room, the rain had let up to a light drizzle, so we went for a walk. By the time we returned just before 5:30, the sky was getting brighter although it was still very humid. Looks like tomorrow could be a nice day.
Our hotel is on the Esplanade, the main street along the shore, lined with hotels. As usual, there is a park along the shore. We took a path down to the shore that was like walking through the jungle with ferns and vines everywhere. The rocks on the shore were very colourful. I guess the combination of saltwater and erosion and sun causes all the different minerals to display different colours. No two were alike and they were all as beautiful as rocks can be.
The whole country of Australia is very proud of its war record. In WWI they had a nation building experience at Gallipoli similar to Canada’s experience at Ypres. Because of their geographical position in the world, they have a large interest in Southeast Asia and distinguished themselves in Vietnam. But their biggest patriotism is focused on WWII. They were on the front lines as the Japanese bombed Darwin in 1942 killing 252 people in one raid. There were 64 raids on Darwin in total and they dropped twice as many bombs here as they did on Pearl Harbour. That experience is very prominent in the monuments and tourist attractions in the city.
posted by Celeste at
8:40 p.m.
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