Vikings in Australia - Víkingar í Ástralíu

22^nd of September

Once again we slept late. Once up and about we drove into town and parked near the centre. From there we walked into the mall, whereby most of the tourists do their shopping (The Darwininas go to the shopping centre out of town!!) We had some brekkie and then Sibba found a hairdresser that could cut her hair right away! Once done we found another camping store or so we thought. It turned out to be a fishing/Tackle store. They did have very nice Shimano shirts, long sleeved for sale so we ended up buying a few of those!! Further down the road we found a true camping store. They also had some shirts, but they cost much more than the Shimanos!!

After that we headed back to the centre of town to see the old town hall, or what is left of it after Cyclone Tracy, back in the seventies. It’s simply a ruin with four walls that are missing lots of bits and pieces. It’s well re-designed as a monument to Tracy.

Then we went down to the Darwin harbour to see the old world war two oil tunnels. Back before the second world war, the army had built large Oil tanks on top of a hill near the harbour in Darwin. Not a smart move! They stood out like a sore thumb aimed at the Japanese!!

So the army decided to go underground with their tanks. They had a team of 400 dig out 10 tunnels into the side of a hill next to the harbour. The tunnels are up to two hundred meters long, about 5m high and 4 meters wide. This means a lot of fuel can be stored, with pumping stations in/out and to the harbor. When they were finished, it turned out that they leaked like a sieve!! Thus they were never actually used, except for three of them which were used by the Australian Airforce for a few years in the early fifties. Once you get into them, you can understand as to why this would never work. They concreted an oval wall first and then lined it with steel plates with little or no insulation between the steel plates and the concrete! I guess they were in a hurry as this was all finished just after the war ended.

Next to the old oil tunnels is a new development on the harbour foreshore. The Darwininas call it the Darwin Waterfront. New apartment houses, a beach and a wave pool, where they generate their own waves. This is all very nice and obviously brand new and free of Crocs!!. The usual cafes and restaurants are there as well.

From there we decided to drive out of town to the Charles Darwin National Park. Once in there most of the tracks into the forest are marked “Danger, contains Asbestos. No Access.” There are some walking tracks, but we didn’t feel up to it in the heat. The park has a number of underground bunkers that were used during the Second World War. It probably also explains the Asbestos!!

From there we headed out to Fog Dam, which is a wetlands area with lots of birds. It’s a 50km drive out of Darwin. Along the way we passed Humpty Doo, which is a pretty crazy name for a small village!! The Fog Dam turned out to be a raised road which acts as a dam wall. On one side was the wetland with lots of water. There were lots of warning sign banning anyone from walking on the road, due to crocs! It was ok to drive though.

We stopped at a car park and did a walk which went through the forest and into the wetland. For some reason, most of the birds seemed to be on vacation somewhere else as we didn’t see many birds. At the end of this walk is a long path on a board walk that ends in the wetland area with a nice bench and a roof for shade. As we walked into it, something jumped at Sibba and bit her in the leg. It was gone in a flash, so we didn’t see what it was. Sibba of course wasn’t impressed! It doesn’t appear to have been anything poisonous as Sibba is still fine. We then headed back to the Motel and later in the evening got a taxi to take us to Hogsbreath for a real stake!!