Quick Christmas trip to Darwin

[pangwen]

I’ve been reading a bunch of trip reports recently, and I thought I would give one back. We have just returned from our first trip to DRW, over the Christmas long weekend.

Now some of you might be thinking: “Doing DRW for the first time in the wet season? Are they mad?”

Perhaps so, but I had some itchy feet and was eying my points balance in early October and wanted to fly somewhere in business class for the Christmas long weekend only (needed to be back at work on 28/12). You can probably see where this is going, I was going to run into the old FF redemption triangle “fixed destination, fixed dates, or redeem points – pick two”. For me, the destination would have to give, and since I hadn't been to DRW before, I thought "why not visit somewhere in Australia for a change?"

Luckily for me, I found two business redemption seats:

• 23/12: QF826
• 27/12: QF827

Coupled with going to DRW, these were OMG o’clock flights . But at least QF826 meant I could work on Friday and go to the airport afterwards.

The journey began about a month after I booked the flights, when I noticed that QF had cancelled my return flight on QF827. It looked like they were pulling the B737 from the BNE-DRW route the day after I flew up. QF kindly put me on that morning’s QF1919 (i.e. the flight leaving at 6:45am instead of 1:30am) instead, but I needed to get this reticketed. As I redeemed some CX miles for this, I had to call CX up to reticket. Fortunately, this was done after a single ~2 hour call, and nothing else bad happened to my ticket.

Other parts of the planning went well – being a ‘less desirable’ holiday destination, I managed to get sensible accommodation rates for the Hilton (~$174/night) and for car hire (~$290 for a 4WD for 4 days). I had been considering a trip to the Gold Coast, and the rates there were at least double for something similar.

 

[pangwen]

A couple of days prior to my departure, I was reminded why Darwin isn’t as popular for tourists in wet season – cyclones.

I kept the Bureau’s website on in the background for much of Thursday, checking to make sure TC Ellie wouldn’t interrupt my plans. Luckily, it passed by to the south-west the morning prior to my trip.

 

[pangwen]

23/12/2022:

Now, time for the trip itself. We got to the airport a bit early, and (for the first time ever), decided to swing by the BNE QP and see what they had. I would usually have just walked straight past and into the Dom J lounge, but the QP was quiet and we thought we would check out both and compare.

Am I glad we did! There was a Christmas-themed buffet there that night, with ham and baked veggies. To top it off, we even got some Christmas-themed ice cream sandwiches!



After eating our fill, we trundled over to the J lounge to see how they could top this. Suffice to say, they didn’t.

I didn’t take a photo, but it was the standard ‘meat in sauce and veggies’ offering in the bain-marie. It was slightly better than my previous experience, as there was a lot of meat left in there, but that was probably because I was there at a quiet time of the night (only ~3 more QF domestic departures left to go that night).

 

[pangwen]

Flight number: QF826
Scheduled departure/arrival: 2115/0055
Actual departure/arrival: 2152/0138

Our flight was the last QF flight scheduled to leave BNE domestic that night. Eventually, at around 2045, they announced that the last QF flight would be boarding in about 10 minutes, and the lounge would be closing after that (plus some stuff along the lines of “JQ pax get out”, but I didn’t pay attention to that ). The departure board hadn’t changed by 2055, but we thought “10 minutes is 10 minutes” so headed over to the gate.

Turns out the flight was delayed due to the late arrival of the crew. At around 2110, the crew turned up, and we started boarding another 10 or so minutes after that.

Once airborne, I switched my tablet on and started catching up on Andor, and I missed the first part of the captain’s announcement. Something about air traffic control closed or something like that. We ended up needing to divert towards the south slightly before going north, which exacerbated our late departure.



Although I had already had a bite to eat in the lounge, I couldn’t pass up another meal. I got the Barrumundi, and there were some more Christmas surprises – a block of Koko Black chocolate, a lamington tea cake, and a serve of ice cream.





Luckily the Thrifty car hire counter was right next to the luggage carousel, so I could sign for the car while keeping an eye for my bag (go multi-tasking at 1:45am!)

Got out of the airport, and.. gosh it was hot, humid and raining. Luckily, I didn't get rained on at all (except while in the car) for the next three days, but I knew the heat and humidity would be constant companions.

Fortunately, it was a short drive with no traffic to the Hilton (parking around the corner at the State Square car park), and we were checked in quickly (see separate post in the "How do Hilton treat you as an Elite?" thread for more details).

 

[pangwen]

Apart from business classic reward availability, one of the reasons we picked Darwin as a destination was because there were sights that would be open for visitors. We were going to be in town for three days (24/12-26/12), and two of them were public holidays.

We planned an itinerary that would maximise the number of attractions we could hit.

Saturday, 24 December
We woke up a bit late due to getting to bed at an ungodly hour, but still had a few things on the itinerary today:

1. Parap Village Markets (operates every Saturday)
2. Darwin Aviation Museum (would be closed 25/12 and 26/12)
3. Fannie Bay Gaol (open Weds to Sun only, closed 25/12)
4. Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (would be closed 25/12 and 26/12)

Numbers 2 and 3 were a bit ho-hum to be honest, but we did enjoy 1 and 4. No pictures inside the museum/art gallery, but we took a few photos at the markets (number 1). They were my favourite type of markets – ones where most stalls sell food! . Got myself a curry puff and a Laksa, delicious! As I walked around, I did notice the demon fruit seems to be present in Darwin though...

 

[pangwen]

Sunday, 25 December

As most businesses were closed on this day, we decided to venture south to check out some of the nature parks and National Parks. We’re not really hikers, so we spent much of the time doing short (<30 minute) walks and driving between viewing points.

Some of the walks were closed for wet season.

Berry Springs was our first stop. The pools were closed (not that we were game to go near the water anyway).


We then went to a selection of sights in Litchfield National Park.

 

[pangwen]

Monday, 26 December

This was our last full day in Darwin. Two main things on the to-do list today:

• RFDS Tourist Facility
• Crocosaurus Cove

We thoroughly enjoyed both attractions.

The RFDS facility was a combined attraction that explored the history of the RFDS, as well as what happened during WW2 in Darwin.



Crocosaurus Cove was (as the name suggests) a crocodile-themed attraction in the middle of town. Got to watch crocodile feeding, snake feeding, got to touch some non-venomous snakes and lizards etc. etc.

 

[pangwen]

Tuesday, 27 December
Flight number: QF1919
Scheduled departure/arrival: 0645/1110
Actual departure/arrival: 0704/1121

Well, it was finally time to come home. We checked out of the Hilton at around 5am and drove back to the airport. Handy hint: if you rent a car from Thrifty, *do not* follow the signs for the rental car return area. They are not there, but are in another part of the car park. We drove around in the dark (the car park lights weren’t working) for a while and couldn’t find where Thrifty was – just signs for Avis, Hertz, Sixt, and Dollar.

After a few rounds of the car park, we gave up and just parked in one of the bays. We returned the keys to the out-of-hours return chute with a note for Thrifty telling them what happened (called them afterwards and everything was fine).

Check-in was a breeze, and so was security. The Qantas lounge is located just across from where the old (closed) Virgin lounge is – you can still see the VA signage inside.



The Qantas lounge was quite nice, with lots of room, and the typical breakfast spread.



By the time we finished our food, we were the last QF flight left for a few hours. Wonder what happened to the Bali flight…



Our plane was a Qantaslink (Alliance) E190. Unlike some of the other reviews we had read, our plane only had 9 business class seats over 3 rows in a 1-2 configuration (I guess they haven’t updated the regos on the seat map yet). The seats were pretty comfortable.



I took one final shot from the plane after take-off, and that was it for this trip. Hope you enjoyed reading!

 

[NSun]

Interesting to read having visited Darwin just a couple of months ago. I also took a Silly O'Clock hour flight (on the way up but thankfully not on the way back) and saw Crocosaurus Cove.

 

[ellen10]

We are travelling to Darwin in July. Thanks for sharing your trip.

 

[Sprucegoose]

We drove around in the dark (the car park lights weren’t working) for a while and couldn’t find where Thrifty was – just signs for Avis, Hertz, Sixt, and Dollar.

Just leave it anywhere and tell them to pick it up (leave the keys with Avis - plead dumb) and fix the bloody signs.

Thanks for the TR

 

[Cessna 180]

Nice report.
Best time of year to visit Darwin and the Kimberley. Everything is green and alive, creeks, rivers and waterfalls. Love it.

 

[drron]

Thanks for the report. We will have to get back there. We were there last not long after Crocosaurus opened. I was able to pay a bit extra to watch the croc feeding from behind the staff. Didn’t see that in your picture. Have they stopped the practice?

 

[JohnM]

Nice report.
Best time of year to visit Darwin and the Kimberley. Everything is green and alive, creeks, rivers and waterfalls. Love it.

Have to fly everywhere, though - but, hey, that's not a bad thing...

 

[pangwen]

Thanks for the report. We will have to get back there. We were there last not long after Crocosaurus opened. I was able to pay a bit extra to watch the croc feeding from behind the staff. Didn’t see that in your picture. Have they stopped the practice?

Ah yep, I think that’s still available but nobody went for that package (the VIP tour?) on the day we went.

There was also the “cage of death” ticket option which lets you get dropped into the croc pool inside a Perspex tank to get up close to the crocs. I wasn’t game to do that!

 

[pangwen]

Best time of year to visit Darwin and the Kimberley. Everything is green and alive, creeks, rivers and waterfalls.

Indeed, everything was just so lush and the creeks and waterfalls were roaring in the national parks.