Darwin - City in the tropicsA place of beautiful sunsets.
Darwin is a fascinating city that has two major disasters to it's name. Major bombing attacks occurred in 1942 (during World War II) and Cyclone Tracy levelled the city in 1974. Twice as many bombs where dropped in first raid on Darwin than were dropped on Pearl Harbour. Over 60 air-raids occurred, and many hundreds of Australian and American solders died.
Oil tunnels under the city were built to keep the oil under the ground safe from the Japanese attacks. This tunnel would have held 3.5 Million Litres of oil and is 175 Metres long. Mitch and Callum enjoyed being under the city, it was dark and eerie.
Northern territory House of Parliament. We visited because it is air conditioned! On the day we visited, the Governor General of Australia - Michael Jeffery - also visited and we watched him rehearse a speech. Do you know what role Major General Jeffery does for Australia?
Fish feeding at Doctors Gully. Loads of big fish, Mullet, Salmon Catfish, Milkfish and Batfish. They were nibbling on Mitch and Callum's toes. Darwin gets huge 7 metre tides.
The Darwin Aviation Museum. Mitch in front of a Mirage. This Mirage had crash landed in the mudflats near Darwin, the pilot had a lucky escape by ejecting as the plane crashed.
The museum is dominated by a huge B52 Bomber. This was the favourite of both Mitch and Callum. This giant weighs 200 tons and was based in Darwin as part of America's Australian Air force Bases. This bomber is capable of carrying 6 nuclear bombs; a very alarming thought.
Callum and a helicopter, I think that Callum would be quite dangerous behind the controls of one of these.
A Sea King Helicopter - they had all sorts of kit in this museum, the boys had a go at climbing on everything.
Mitch and the Spitfire. All the Howe boys enjoyed the aircraft.
They keep saying that I am obsessed by my bike....... .....but I treat 'Treddlemeister' like any other member of the family....!
1 comment:
hi Howies
we liked Doctors gully fish as well. love them milkfish and did u see any Barras - there were 2 or 3 there! Sue almost knocked some lady into the water there that was chocked with fish and the old lady probably would have been eaten in seconds by the milkfish?
We didnt get 2 the plane museum - didnt know there was one. we went to a ww2 huge gun emplacement somewhere and also we didnt get 2 the nite markets.
weather still nice and warm in old sydney.
tropical cyclone Gubba is still in the coral sea and wont get anywhere near u guys. Elections next weekend 24th i think so dont forget to donkey vote or whatever!
Do they have voting places up there or do u have to phone thru your preferences with the pizza order?
take care u guys and keep up the postings.
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