Week 11 : 4 May to 10 May 2012 -- Darwin

With the long weekend looming we had hoped to get the camping gear out and head out to Litchfield National Park. The weather predictions were a bit dubious so we decided to postpone that to another time and continue to explore Darwin instead.

The Broncos didn’t play Friday night. We missed their Saturday game on tele and unfortunately it’s now two games we’ve missed and two they’ve lost. We have to be sure not to miss any more!

Lot 1099 Burnett House

On Saturday morning, after preparing a picnic lunch and filling the flask, we went to the Myilly Point Heritage Precinct, not far from Darwin City, to have a look at “Burnett House”. There are 4 (originally 5) houses here designed by Beni Carr Glynn Burnett who was appointed the Australian Government’s Principal Architect in the NT in 1937. These houses are the first ever designed as appropriate housing for Australia’s tropical north. Burnett House is a two storey building with living and dining areas on the ground floor opening onto shaded verandahs and sleeping area upstairs. It has louvred walls, utilising the principles of cross ventilation by natural means and the living and sleeping areas have a large portion of opening walls.

Louvred bedroom

The houses are now managed by the National Trust (NT Branch). Completed in 1938, Burnett House (the only one open to the public) was first occupied by the Director of Works before being occupied by staff of the Darwin Hospital and the Australian Women’s Army Service during the war.

It suffered bomb, shrapnel and strafing damage during WWII, mainly to the first floor. It suffered damage also from Cyclone Tracy that resulted in the original asbestos roof being replaced with corrugated iron. The house has lovely tropical gardens including examples of tub planting which was popular at the time because the house had no reticulated water.

After leaving here we went out to East Point and found ourselves a picnic table in the shade with a cooling sea breeze, where we thoroughly enjoyed our lunch and coffee.

Our view from our picnic spot at East Point

Nightcliff 

The Seabreeze Festival was happening on Saturday at Nightcliff (an area I told you about last week), so we headed over there to have a look. We were an hour or so early, however, the sand sculptors were doing their thing so we checked out what they were up to and then I dragged Vic over to the military dump site.

Rusting in peace

Look what I found...wonder what it's off?

Because the tide was lower than last time I was here, I got down on the rusty heap and had a closer look. Still no evidence of Jeeps though… unfortunately!

Surf lifesavers doing their best at sand sculpting
- waves aren't exactly rolling in...

The day was really hot (34°) with a high humidity, locally known as the “sweat factor”, so we didn’t wait for the Festival to get going. Instead, we came back to the park and hit the pool.

On Sunday we got going about mid morning and headed over to the Charles Darwin National Park. Although declared a National Park in 1997, the area was significant to Darwin’s history long before that. It has strong ties to the Larrakia People who are the traditional landowners and the Chinese used the area to grow vegetables in the city’s formative years. Like most things around Darwin, there is a military connection here also with quite a few storage bunkers dotted throughout the park.

Armco Magazine #12

Inside display of #12

Officially known as Armco Magazines, unofficially, “Bomb Dumps, they are covered in earth so that from the air they look like hills. Built during the war years to store ammunition, bombs and other stores by the Navy and Air Force, they were used from 1944 to 1980. Number 12 bunker is open to the public and has a great display of equipment and information panels which give you a good indication of what life was like working around such a dangerous and secretive place.

Darwin City from Charles Darwin National Park

We continued on the drive through the park and came to the picnic area that has a viewing deck across the harbour to Darwin City. Vic and I were amazed that, given it was such a glorious day and the Sunday of a long weekend, we had the place to ourselves. We spent some time here enjoying the view before we drove over to Stoke’s Hill Wharf.

Stokes Hill wharf

We grabbed a couple of cold drinks and a snack, chose a table by the wharf’s edge and sat back and watched the world go by for a while. 

Back at camp, we had a quick swim before settling back with some neighbours for a very happy hour! Monday was the public holiday and as such was a lazy day around the park with a sleep in, followed by a slow read of the paper, before a cuppa and then a long quiet swim.

The rest of the week was routine by our new standards and past uneventfully. We are still finding “Darwin Time” difficult to deal with on occasion. For example, mail is frustratingly slow and takes anywhere from 10 to 15 days to arrive from Brisbane. Even though we had applied in ample time (or so we thought) for absentee voting forms, we had to forgo our right to vote in the recent Brisbane Council Elections because the forms arrived too late (arrived in post on the Monday after the election).

Those of you who know me would be aware of my obsession with the vehicles and machinery of WWII, which has stayed with me since I had my ’42 Willys Jeep. When a need was found, the equipment used by the Allies was designed, built, shipped and thrown into battle in a very short time. It all had an extremely short life expectancy, which in the Jeep’s case, was just 90 days. When the war came to Australian shores, courtesy of the air raids on the 19^th February 1942, Darwin was catapulted into the battle.

The planning and construction, of many of the WWII sites we’ve visited, happened in a very short time and yet, they remain as a vivid reminder of the sacrifices many of Australia’s young men and women made in order for us to live our very comfortable lives. As this year marks the 70^th anniversary of the Darwin bombings, much has been done up here to reinvent these sites as tourist attractions. If you are travelling up this way I urge you to allocate some time to visit them. You will find it gives you an opportunity to walk in the shoes of the men and women who were stationed here and will leave you with a much stronger appreciation of what they went through.

Until next week… Happy travels.

You and Me