Day 37 Feb 12 Darwin
Three sea days after Cairns it was Darwin’s turn. The docking took an eternity in what appeared to be relatively easy conditions. We approached at snail’s pace and there were worried looks on the faces of the captain and the pilot. I turned out that we were catching a fairly stiff cross breeze and they were worried about the tidal depth and that we might hit the wharf. But we got there and during the day experienced one of Darwin’s massive tides. At one point the wharf was well below our window and a few hours later we had a great view of the wharf’s undercarriage.
There seems to have been a lot of building in Darwin in the few years since we were last here. It looks mainly to consist of city apartments of varying architectural merit. But it remains a sleepy town and we found it hard to believe that its population is now over 140,000.
We decided to have a quietish day and just go out to the Museum and Art Gallery at Fannie Bay. It was very impressive for a regional gallery. They have a good display about Cyclone Tracey though there is a newer one elsewhere in town I think. We discovered that Seniors in the NT get free local public transport and the Gallery was free admission, so we had a cheap day. Some people had gone on a ship’s tour to the Gallery and paid nearly USD100. We remained quietly smug.
We’d planned to go out for dinner given we were not sailing until 11.00pm but, having both acquired heavy colds, we gave that idea a miss. Half the ship seems to have sore throats. Ah, the joys of ship travel.
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Sunrise as we approached.
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Sadly Alex Got on the wrong bus. Not so fantastic Alex.
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Boats that had made their way to Northern Australia.
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