Darwin

[Cocitus23]

My daughter returned from East Timor last week, and because of unfortunate flight connections she had to spend 5 hours at DRW. As I have never been there, I asked her how she found it. She replied, "They call it Australia's Northern Gateway, but it makes you embarrassed to be an Australian." "How come?" I asked. "Well, it's so shabby and run-down, and the furniture is so grubby and in need of replacement. But beyond the physical state of the facilities, it's just wall-to-wall bogans up there."
Now I'll confess that my daughter lives in the electorate of Kooyong and sends her kids to private schools, but in most things she has a reasonable grip on reality.
So, those of you who are familiar with DRW, is there an element of truth in her descriptions of the airport and the northern citizenry, or should I give her a re-education course for Christmas?

 

[RooFlyer]

Having lived there for a number of years and visited regularly since, I have no hesitation in saying that top-Enders live a quite different lifestyle to most of the rest of Australia, and inner city Melbourne and Sydney in particular!

Sure, there are 'rough' edges, and even rough patches, but if your daughter were to get 'into it' and not give it the superficial once over, I'm sure she would come to love the place.

The laid back lifestyle, lack of sense of formality, easy access to outdoors and fantastic multi cultural mix all worked for me. The first time I had a 3 chili paw paw salad at the Mindil Markets I knew I had arrived!

If you are a formal gown, go to the opera type, leave the pleasure of the Top End to others. But if you want a great lifestyle - visit as soon as you can!

 

[eastwest101]

Yes unfortunately stereotypes and assumptions have some basis - but I agree that maybe your daughter could broaden her travel horizons a bit more and take the range rover a bit further out than the mornington peninsula in the future.

She may be right about DRW airport though, it isn't the nicest of airports....

 

[NTflyer]

I think that your daughter should get out a bit more. Embarrassing no different yes. I came to Darwin 9 years ago and never plan on leaving. Did she even speak to any of these so called bogans. The dress standards are different up here because of the weather and most people up here don't worry about pretending how important they are like they do down south.

 

[erkpod]

It's certainly no SYD/MEL/BNE but the airport is more like OOL in more ways than one.

 

[markis10]

It's certainly no SYD/MEL/BNE but the airport is more like OOL in more ways than one.

Especially if your caught up in JQ happy hour sleepover time, but I would not be judging DRW by its airport just because it has lots of backpackers using the floor as a hotel.

 

[Mal]

If exclusively talking about the airport... Pretty spot on really. If talking about the town I would suggest she needs a broader view on life.

 

[Simo]

DRW airport has a bogan element but there is many JQ flights.

DRW and most of NT has a very laid back life style.

People move to DRW to have a better laid back lifestyle that can be achieved in any other capital city.

 

[markis10]

DRW airport has a bogan element but there is many JQ flights.

DRW and most of NT has a very laid back life style.

People move to DRW to have a better laid back lifestyle that can be achieved in any other capital city.

Indeed, the outrage when the government wanted to register private boats was quite amazing!

 

[ozbeachbabe]

My daughter returned from East Timor last week, and because of unfortunate flight connections she had to spend 5 hours at DRW.

As I have never been there, I asked her how she found it. She replied, "They call it Australia's Northern Gateway, but it makes you embarrassed to be an Australian." "How come?" I asked. "Well, it's so shabby and run-down, and the furniture is so grubby and in need of replacement. But beyond the physical state of the facilities, it's just wall-to-wall bogans up there."

Now I'll confess that my daughter lives in the electorate of Kooyong and sends her kids to private schools, but in most things she has a reasonable grip on reality.

So, those of you who are familiar with DRW, is there an element of truth in her descriptions of the airport and the northern citizenry, or should I give her a re-education course for Christmas?

There are nil QFi flights ex DRW so JQi reign supreme. The majority of JQi flights originating in SE Asia & transit in DRW en route to Southern ports require all pax to clear Customs in DRW.

JQ82 ops DPS/DRW/BNE & transits in DRW 0305-0640 so once pax are through Customs they'll generally be sprawled all over the floor near the baggage carousels. I'm sure your daughter would have seen plenty if examples of this.

Others will make there way upstairs & sleep on the floor near the boarding gate for their onward flight.

Tell your daughter not to judge DRW by the transit bogans.

There is so much to do in & around DRW & it's a great place to escape to winter. Kids love it & I'm sure she would too.

 

[Nizar]

Especially if your caught up in JQ happy hour sleepover time, but I would not be judging DRW by its airport just because it has lots of backpackers using the floor as a hotel.

Backpacker not quite, and I was lucky enough to nab a chair as my hotel back in March.
On a JQ flight DPS-MEL via DRW, biggest mistake of my life.
Was supposed to arrive at 6:30am in MEL and straight to work, had appointments booked the whole day 8:30am till about 5:00pm.
Flight from DPS was about 1 hour late initially then after all pax boarded, they had an air con problem, ended up leaving 1h 45m late getting into DRW 15mins before my flight to MEL, which happened to leave bang on time. As I got to the gate I could just see the plane taking off....

Went to the jetstar desk and abused them lol as you do, and was given meal vouchers and told that I will be on the next jetstar service which departs at 7am, current time was around 1am. The 7am flight was due to arrive in MEL at 1:30pm, ended up arriving at about 3:30pm, yes it was late again....

Never again lol.

 

[Cocitus23]

There are nil QFi flights ex DRW so JQi reign supreme. The majority of JQi flights originating in SE Asia & transit in DRW en route to Southern ports require all pax to clear Customs in DRW.

JQ82 ops DPS/DRW/BNE & transits in DRW 0305-0640 so once pax are through Customs they'll generally be sprawled all over the floor near the baggage carousels. I'm sure your daughter would have seen plenty if examples of this.

Others will make there way upstairs & sleep on the floor near the boarding gate for their onward flight.

Tell your daughter not to judge DRW by the transit bogans.

There is so much to do in & around DRW & it's a great place to escape to winter. Kids love it & I'm sure she would too.

Thanks, Oz, for a very fine reply. (Typical of your posts, I might add). Thanks too to the others, especially RooFlyer and markis10. I'm quite happy to accept your judgments on Darwin and its people. A couple of you say that my daughter should get out and see a bit more. Mmmm.. well let me say that she has lived for extended periods on most continents and has probably travelled more than 95% of Australians. So she's no babe in the woods.

Cocitus23.

 

[erkpod]

I went to Darwin for a day trip on my birthday in August this year. I caught the VA flight from MEL leaving at o'dark thirty.

The sun was up in DRW when I arrived just before 0600 local & already it was 22°C. There were people lying around everywhere. As I said in my earlier comment, it was no SYD/MEL/BNE.

I caught the shuttle into town when the guy decided to leave (Territory time started to kick in here!) & I went for a walk around the CBD & by the harbour. After finding a place for breakfast, I was thinking of getting an earlier flight back to MEL. But when I saw there wasn't one apart from going via my home port of SYD, I decided to find something to do when the tour operators started for the morning.

I started with am Aquaduck tour which combined a tour of the CBD. I went & had a massage, had lunch & then went on a double decker bus tour (I love those!) in the afternoon.

After the tour, I got a shuttle (eventually!) back to the airport. I already had my BP & breezed through security.

The VA Vlounge was full but in the end shortly before boarding, I did get to sit there.

A nice day trip but I'm not rushing to go back.