Darwin, Australia’s best kept secret pg 3 “Darwin opens its doors for you to enter.” “Darwin, Australia’s best kept secret.” W hy is it the Lonely Planet recently chose Darwin as its only Australian city for the 2011 ‘ Top 10 must see cities on Earth’ ? A young Canadian lady 1 WOrKed with in Darwin spoke of a rep for a Sydney employment agency that had placed her in a job at the top of Oz. This rep explained to the Canadian before she arrived in Darwin how the small northern city was situated in the desert! She would even ring the Canadian lady after arriving in Darwin to query whether she had settled into her arid lifestyle and asked if she was okay, being all alone in the desert after all! Pardon, what desert? I had to laugh when I heard that this Sydneysider was actually headed to our tropical north to visit the Canadian lass and during the wet season, I might add. Oops, not a cactus and thorny devil in sight. I guess this big city gal must have thought that she had been ‘dropped off’ accidently at Denpasar airport hey? Famous storytellers and comedians, those recently arrived to our shores, some choosing to ‘sell’ the redneck, bearded bushman type as the quintessential image of Darwin, because the Australian audience still ‘expects’ this well trodden scenario. If he, they, had stepped down the road to all the other bars, all the other suburbs and natural environments, the scene is modern and thoughtful. But this does not draw a laugh from the sheltered amongst us; let’s not surprise them with what is real. Five minutes in any downtown region does not spew forth the reality of a location. “This story is about Darwin’s natural environment and the many different types of people that call this hot northern city home.” “I’m slipping through the cracks of this society and I’m barefoo' pping g y and running free” Andrea Soler, Nimbin 90 minutes away on the train from the ‘Null’s’ lofty sand dunes and the hidden swampy forests of Botany Bay. The subtropical wilderness of the Royal National Park, along with beautiful aqua-coloured sun drenched bays and the largest stretch of surf beach in the Sydney region, supplied a healthy existence (skin cancer aside). We loved our rugby league, rugby union and cricket. We partied in suburban backyards and in the drunken, twisting, tumbling moshpit at places like the punk hardcore heaven of the ‘Sutho Royal’. Later, some of us learnt to dance to the grooves of the early 90’s; the beginning of the love n peace dance party scene that brought with it the promise of feminine wonder. Trays full of cheaply priced spirits at the murky underworld of the ‘Cronulla Underground’, where we, the 3839’s, and the Ally Boys, would all hang on Thursday nights, mindlessly wiping brain cells from craniums, whilst Nirvana, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers and The Sisters of Mercy blared away on the small, dark dance floor. The occasional trip to the gothic nightclub ‘Sanctuary at The Site’ in the infamous Kings Cross was a craving for a group of us older-hierarchy DAP’s. We had our own bands playing the indy scene in Sydney, including Succotash, This- Thing, Terrible Virtue, Earthworm, Drokk, The Stifled Scream, Throwdown, Mal’s Tricycle, Thatcher and Van. A couple of these bands would tour locally and interstate with some of the biggest bands in Oz like The Hoodoo Gurus, Ed Kuepper, Def FX and The Baby Animals, and also tour with international acts such as Suicidal- Tendencies, Fishbone, and more recently the Dropkick Murphys. When the big Brit punk band The Buzzcocks toured Oz in the 90’s, our crew Succotash was offered the East Coast tour-leg. I was never in Succotash, but as a good mate! worked for them in different ways and had a lot of fun. I knew the music well and I enjoyed doing their light shows. I had a strobe light attached to the desk board which I used when the drummer, Trousers, flew on the double kick and a smoke machine that filled the stage “Cronulla, the racist heartland of Australia?” My favorite market place in Australia outside of Darwin is the Channon market, near Nimbin, in beautiful subtropical ; northern NSW. But the Asian food and tropical fruit on offer in Darwin at its four main market sites, is unbeatable. In fact, I have read on a few occasions in literature where it states that per capita, Darwin is the world’s most multi-ethnic tropical city on the planet. This might go some way to putting southern society’s bogan slander of Darwin to the sword. When I talk to people from overseas, or when in the southern states of Australia, people are surprised to hear that Papuan Yi For a few years there I was made to feel very welcome on the streets of Cronulla and Caringbah. I harboured disdain for the robot ethics of the mainstream; still do, and most knew it wasn’t wise to wind me up, but I gained friendship because I treated people with respect and made them laugh. But I craved new experiences and the distant lonely streets where I was not known. Travel was to become my passion. There isn’t too many places in the world where you are invited to join in witha couple of thousand well wishers and learn to dance and sing the dry season sunset on a city beach, with a clan representing the oldest living culture on Earth, as you can in Darwin. I am proud of Darwin for this, southem Australia is making an effort to delve into its historical past more so these days, it’s an admirable unearthing, but it all seems so naive when I return there. The banquet that brings us all together Darwin’s market lifestyle would be when the US President was in town. I met with Stuart a week after the President’s visit and he was in town at what he called Obamarama Day and slipped the President the bird as his entourage drove by. Apparently this moment was caught and placed onto the NT News website. Anthropologist and author, Bill Day, visits the store when he is in Darwin and I make an effort to see him. Like Stuart and Rob, he too communicates the plight of the Long Grass. Nightcliff market also has the Groove Café, which sells East Timorese coffee under shady, charismatic banyan trees. The Groove Café has an excellent alternative/ Asian clothing and incense shop attached. I am friends with the owners. Many in the local community come to Nightcliff markets with young families to listen to live music and to chat to other families. It is also waaay lament h <atian bavw oka Of course all of Australia’s major cities are multicultural places, but Darwin, being so laid-back and smaller than the other capital cities, makes mingling within the cultures much easier. There is a stronger sense of trust here within communities, I feel. I met a middle-aged farming couple from From my experiences in Darwin I have listed the following groups that I feel noticeably represent the cultural face of Darwin. As far as tourists are concerned, the busy dry season sees Mitchell Street, the party centre in town, full of happy Irish, British and other European backpacker travelers. The visitors that stay on in Darwin, working and soaking up the laid-back, sunny lifestyle, are probably just as bemused as I am by the nonsense verbalised by many Australians that have never been to Darwin. Many Europeans know more about outback Oz than do most that were born here, sadly. The French are especially fascinated by the Indigenous art and the exotic natural Top End landscape. Being so close to Asia sees tourists and business visitors attending conferences by the harbour. Many of Darwin’s big businesses have Chinese heritage. In fact, at the turn of the 20th century, it was said that seven times more Chinese occupied Darwin than did European Australians. The fear that the Japanese installed in Australia led to the formation of the ‘White Australia Policy’, which saw the Chinese numbers thin. This is ironic, I feel, considering the history of the well sustained Chinese residency since “T am proud to have spent eight of my 41 years on Larrakia land.” Dripstone cliffs, Dreamtime importance tc the Larrakia and a place of peace and reflection for all the gold mining days, and the fact that the Chinese themselves suffered the greatest loss of life and dignity at the hands of the Japanese invasion, manifested at the time by a power hungry Prime Minister-General Hideki Tojo. The Greek population is also fiercely Darwin proud and a fond embodiment of the Darwin way of life. the gold mining days, and the fact that the Chinese themselves suffered the greatest loss of life and dignity at the hands of the Japanese invasion, manifested at the time by a power hungry Prime Minister-General Hideki Tojo. The Greek population is also fiercely Darwin proud and a fond embodiment of the Darwin way of life. Greek IOlK love It. Melboume 1S sald to nave the biggest Greek population outside of Greece, and Darwin has more Greeks per capita than does Melbourne. There is, in fact, twice as many Greeks living in Darwin than as per usual for Australia. My sister in law happens to be friends with a Greek family who have invited us to the most amazing Greek functions, where we are ‘forced’ to drink free ale, feast on mud crab and BBQ quail. It is such a hard life in the land of summer. One of the sisters is an ABC television journalist and presenter, and I am constantly bombarding her with my reflections and photographs. The Greek Glenti party on the Esplanade by Darwin Harbour attracts thousands over the Queen’s Birthday weekend. The weather at this time of year is just tempering down to a modest, drier- 31°C or so, and this allows families to nestle under the shade of trees as children make the most of the exciting atmosphere. I really enjoy Glenti and the food is wonderful, though extremely popular. There are huge food halls set up and the lines can be endless. I enjoy the Greek beer and I am a fan of the Greek guitar sounds. Large circles of Greek children and young adults take to the floor in front of the band to dance in traditional Greek costume. This party goes for the entire weekend and as many as 25,000 people arrived to party and feast in 2011. The Greek BBQ octopus is areal draw card; I wait all year for Glenti to pig out on occy. A few years ago the Greek Prime Minister was visiting Melbourne and stopped off in Darwin on his way home to attend Glenti. The Greek community is well entrenched in Darwin and run some of the big businesses here. Many Greek- Australian citizens arrived post-Tracy to rebuild the tropical city, undoubtedly enthusiastic about the year round ocean using weather, and its plentiful supply of seafood that surrounded them in their new Antipodean home. The festivities and food at Glenti make this long weekend icon a big event in Darwin In the book Saltwater People (2001) by the Larrakia Nation A boriginal Corporation, there is a very intimate dialogue with the Larrakia and descriptions of the natural history of their land. Italians make up the fifth largest population represented in Australia, and Darwin does not miss out on Italian culture either. My neighbour has lived in both Sydney and Darwin, and has called Oz home for 25 years now. He has a very thick Italian accent and loves meeting up at Nightcliff Mall for a yarn with other Italian gentlemen of the same semi-retirement ilk. Many Italians are passionate in their Catholic faith and represent the cause enthusiastically. It’s not hard to find a pizza shop, or an Italian restaurant in the city, or in the Darwin burbs either. The weather in Darwin during the dry season is the best. Many visitors come, we are able to swim in the ocean, we feel fresh and are able to socialise anywhere with a cool breeze blowing. The weather in the wet season is nice when it rains although we do not enjoy the humid weather, especially in the buildup. Socialising and cultural practices such as festivals and parties are difficult to organise in this season as the rain and storms minimize the possibility to organise outdoor recreation. If I was to leave Darwin tomorrow, we would miss the dry season and the clean beaches. One of the benefits of being in Darwin is that you can meet famous people without hassle. My son was able to take the autographs and pictures of everyone in the Australian cricket team when they were here playing Bangladesh. He not only got a signed cricket bat and cap for himself, but for friends in India too. This is next to impossible in India. Kind hearted women from the Sri Lankan community, making sure I don’t starve A Melanesian and Polynesian sunset Itis funny, but I was studying at university in Darwin when a beautiful young East Timorese lady invited me to stay at her family home in Dili. Upon asking about how her vacation at home went, she explained to me how her father would not let her leave the house due to ‘the problems that had occurred.’ In the end, I didn’t make it to Dili, but realised after she returned to East Timor that she was in fact the daughter of the then President of East Timor, Mari Alkateri. I have since felt very flattered and I did see what had taken place at her family home on the news here in Darwin; when someone tried to burn it down in opposition to her father’s political stance. An Anglo- Celtic lady known to me ll Oe recently marmed an Indonesian The whitefellas have also added to the cultural landscape here Bradley really has a knack for capturing the Top End landscaj paintings. She enthralled many with her Top End oceanside pe wetland artscapes a couple of years ago and some of her latest seen in this story, with the theme being the harsh beauty of the I love how Katie has included the thylacine in one of her pictu common in Australia before the dingo arrived. Katiehas taught Indigenous students for a number of years now i and has a great spirit with the students. Her husband, ia Russell, a Kiwi, works in remote Top End communities training Indigenous folk in areas of land conservation.I = hope you enjoy Katie’s art complimenting this story, as she volunteered these wonderful depictions of her Me conviction to capturing nature’s mood and beauty. Local S artists display their works at places like the inner city’s Frog’s Hollow community centre, where live indy music and food is on offer to all attending. 7 : Ene Hdl LIYTILs AYLCCMIEL Ibs Lil LAO. JACKY Lo dioV¥ related to the wall enw family the Y unupingu, of which famous singer G eoffrey- Gurrumul Y unupingu is his uncle. His other uncle, Mandawuy Y unupingu, was the lead singer of the popular 90’s band Yothu Yindi. Jacky and his brother Ishmael, who also recently won two Indigenous music awards in as many years, both boarded in Darwin to complete their secondary schooling years. Both young men worked hard at school and passed their A quaculture and Cooking Techniques C ertificate 2 at Charles Darwin University. Seen here, Jacky painted an Eastern Amhem Land landscape and a regionally symbolic bird, as part of a week long Arts business course. Resident artis‘ Cait Wait, trained my students in how to research, design and create a painting of a bird species symbolic of their homelands, as part of running an art based business. During another week long course, Cait also taught the students to research symbolic plant species on which they painted onto totem poles for a bush food garden incorporated into the school setting. The Torres Strait Pigeon Ducala bicolour “We hunt the pigeon as it eats the red berries on the itchy tree Carpentaria acuminata. Eleocarpus arnhemicus “The red fruit is eaten”. Premna ordorata “We eat these berries when they turn black”. Ross Tungatulum (Bathurst Island) The blue-winged Kookaburra Dacelo leachii “This is my message bird. It warns me when someone has passed on, or something important has happened”. Ross Tungatulum (Bathurst Island) The blue-winged Kookaburra Dacelo leachii Wildlife Orange Footed Scrub Fowl Megapodius reinwardt COKXT 41 #14 x 41,1 a a a I a brother knows hundreds of indigenous folk and families; he spent 14 years in Darwin working with Indigenous students. Students arrive to stay in Darwin from all over the Top End, the Kimberley region of Western Australia, down to the Red Centre and from over in western and northern Queensland. Along with all the other cultural groups residing in Darwin, from as far away as Brazil and Somalia, schooling is a culturally rich experience in Darwin. The Marikas are a proud family who are proactive in their community. In the book titled ‘An Intruder’s Guide to East Amhem Land’, author Andrew McMillan talks about how the Y olngu were treated with respect whilst working alongside white soldiers towards a common goal. They were provided with new skills and they all felt included in the activity taking place around the airstrips. During World War II, where their hard work was recognised, Indigenous people felt important. When the war ended and the service personnel departed, so did all the fancy items that came with the armed forces, and the weekly wages supplied. On page 181 of Andrew McMillan’s ‘An Intruder’s Guide to East Arnhem Land’ (2007), the author says of the Y olngu: Kimberley landscapes by Katie Bradley Names are also given to landscape relationships, in relation to creation spirits. In some regions it is a name related to the landscape where the baby was conceived, or where the baby first kicked in the womb. Kinship can provide for custodial ownership, or use, of certain areas of land. Indigenous spirituality means protecting one’s self from disrespecting ancestors and disrespecting the creation spirits that designed and created the natural landscape. Many of our students speak not only as many as four languages other than English; due to marital relationships with other tribal groups in far off regions and along past trade routes, but our students also have as many as four names. Indigenous spirituality I guess I have the likes of Les Hiddins (Bush Tucker Man) and the late Malcolm Douglas to thank for my initial interest in the Top End ecology and climate. Like many, I am truly infatuated by the Top End environment and the Indigenous culture here. Of the three largest tropical towns in Australia, Cairns is by far and away the most tropical, in the sense that it has less of a marked dry season and is surrounded by lush jungle-clad mountains. Darwin, having a more marked dry season, and Townsville being situated in a moisture hindering rain shadow, look less like the Asia- Pacific paradise that Cairns befits. Broome is tropical semi-arid, though it too has a humid wet season. But without doubt, Darwin is the hottest, most humid city in RK wambnnlenw Sl mn wees won. meena Liaw Southern India’s, the Top End buildup season is infamous. Along the equator there are periods of steamy lulls known by sailors as the doldrums. But in locations around 8° to 20° north or south of the equator, this sultry, hot stillness lasts for months. I have travelled along the equator many times in Asia during the hottest time of year, and in areas of the tropical Pacific, and no place I have seen produces the steam-bath heat that Darwin and the Top End birth. October is the official start to the wet season; this means afternoon storms form, though the monsoon lows generally do not appear until mid December, sometimes January. The 2011 buildup season got well and truly underway by early October, where as many as three storms per day were moving through coastal Darwin, and the humidity was as high as 99% during the day in the 33° C plus temperatures- soaking the shirt through when moving about outside. December to March: The ‘wet season/monsoon’ Barra’mirri Mayaltha- occurs over the Australian summer period when tropical monsoon lows and cyclones form in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and northern tropical Australia. This is the season when the coastal Indigenous groups collect magpie geese, shellfish and cycad fruits. A time when my brother's dingo-dog loses her fur and visitor's glasses fog up upon leaving the air-conditioned comfort of hotels. As the Earth orbits around the sun, solar energy shifts to opposite polar directions. In affect, the sun begins to move from SE Asia and down over the equator into northern Australia. Winds in the Himalayas push the monsoon out of Asia and the developing heat troughs in tropical northern Australia act as a vacuum, UIGost LOHYLULY GELUYEos MMOsWY YUCCUL GULINY Ule WOVICdL low-pressure systems. However, the building of storms in between the lows is common, and the night is thus cooled a little with a tropical downpour. Many a wet season night provides for a balmy, gentle palm swirling breeze on sunset. Alas fearful comrades I saw it rain lightly from a cloudless sky one day in Darwin in the middle of the monsoon season. It was 34° C with 96% humidity at that time at 3pm, and the night saw a ferocious storm hit the harbour city. At 8:30 am the next morning I worked in 99% humidity at 29° C, with an impossibly slippery mattock whilst trying to cut through palm roots and absolutely drenched in sweat. Nothing unusual for Darwin though, I might add. On returning home from trips to the south in the summer months, it is not uncommon to hear folk explaining how the walls of their homes had become covered in mould. Upon lifting bed covers; whole bed sheets at times being covered with the same intruder due to the dank moist air. Many people leave ceiling fans swirling on low when away, but this can see your house burn to a cinder also. I have lost many clothes to wet season moulds. Later in the year the dry season saves the day, but is less interesting weather-wise. Yegge: This season runs from early May to until early June, the storms have ceased and the weather is cooler. It is the start of the long dry period with cool nights and misty mornings. Women collect waterlily stems from the swamps and yams from inland vine thickets. Men begin burning the dry grass, attracting many kites, which hunt on the insects and other animals forced out into the open. The kites are themselves hunted by other animals. grass. The inland plains are filled with water and many people are pinned down in their coastal camp due to the weather conditions. Wild honeysuckle (Banksia spps) begin to flower and the wild rice is ready to harvest. Women are very busy collecting yams and roots in this season. The diversity that comes with micro-climate & the natural communities who hide from fire Large mammals, such as feral pigs and waterbuffalo, introduce asexually generated plant parts into other regions too. This also helps to genetically invigorate these rainforest pockets. There is a population of wild Indonesian cattle that reside in the jungles of north western Amhem Land on Cobourg Peninsular. They were introduced from Bali and are in fact the last remaining wild banteng left on this lonely planet. A couple of years ago a man hunting feral pigs to the south west of Darwin accidently shot and killed a pigmy hippo! He thought it to be a swine; it had escaped from a private zoo that had closed down many years before. I always wonder of the Aerie Awana bhea Khabies MAA AAA Rar Ak. The banyan 1s actually a o£ ASlan Native and naturalised itself in Australia as we smashed into Asia millions of years ago. India too drifted north and head-butted A sia; this formed the Himalayas, which are still rising 10mm a year. Oz has been causing grief to SE Asian life in the past decade with the tsunamis caused by our continental shelf continuing to edge closer to the sun. It’s this greedy shuffle north that sees me typing away madly at this very moment in Darwin; 30° c and 80% humidity at 7.45pm, October. The highlands of New Guinea too area product of this push into the tropics from Antarctica. New Guinea is actually connected to continental Australia; the Torres Straits are just flooded mountain tops of once joined PNG and Oz. Some of the monsoonal rains that would have shifted south into Queensland are trapped within PNG nearer to the equator, due to the uplifting of land there. Asian animals; such as non- marsupial placental mammals-the bats, flying foxes and rats, moved into Australia along land connections and via ocean driftwood. Later in time Asiatic species arrived with seafarers and human migration undoubtedly. Some birds and tropical plant species also moved into Australia, the Wallace Line thicket. These ecosystems flourish in areas away from springs, and due to the lack of available water in the dry season, they drop leaves to retain trunk moisture during the long dry spells. Therefore, these habitats are also semi-deciduous in nature. They also function as biologically important sites as they abut mangrove communities in areas near the coastal fringe, and therefore share fauna species between the two canopies. With the declining evergreen rainforests influenced by the advent of fire in the landscape in the past 45,000 years, these fringing ecosystems with their full canopies help act as a stronghold for those species cordoned into now rarer niches. Even though the huge tracts of rainforest receded with the expanse of the tropical savanna, and with the continuing desertification of tropical A frica and Australia, the Vitamin C is to be found in the Kakadu plumb, known by the Indigenous group green plumb. Other edible fruits include bush grapes, cocky apples, syzygium ‘1 apples’, cycad nuts and arrowroot fruit. Indigenous clans didn’t just name their children after native fauna, but from native flora too. A few of my students fron the West (Kakadu) and Eastern Arnhem Land region have both fauna and flora Dreaming names. This means that they are forbidden from eating the fauna, unl special ceremonial events allow this temporarily. Even harming a centipede, for example, can bring on headaches to those who have trodden on one. I have had couple of students, especially the Jawoyn from the Katherine region, who have spooky critter as their Dreaming name. As I mentioned previously, I was namec ‘cockatoo’ by an Indigenous elder in NSW. On one of my long walks in the subtropics of NSW, an over feisty white cockatoo bit into the palm of my hand, drawing blood, and an Indigenous friend- Percy, suggested I tell this antisocial rogue that I will have to give him back to the aborigines if he was to persist in such unruly behavior! Wild red apple Syzygium suborbiculare of Australia and the world also, I wanted to ascertain what Stuart felt was unique about the Top End. Stuart described how conservation in the Top End is like working ina developing country compared to with the southern regions of Australia. He described how most people living in the Darwin region for example were ex-pats, and therefore as people arrive, then move on in a relatively short period of time, the environmental ethic of land conservation and caution is lower than compared to regions which have already learnt from the problems encountered in earlier days. However, Stuart also described how about 90% of the environmental problems that occur in the Top End happen around the Darwin region and in the mine site areas around NE Arnhem Land. Therefore, there is less intensive development impacting upon the wider region than in the more populated regions of Australia. He said that working i in the Top End provides for a a + I71 more profitable within the landscape. Stuart also communicated how worried he was about the devastation of the last remaining intact tropical savanna woodland in the world, which runs 3000km from Broome in the west, to Townville in the east, and which crowds time in the majority of the landscape north from this extensive line. Australia is also the only nation thus far that has not dammed any of its tropical river systems. QVEll ds d SlOlil) DIOKE OUL dVOUL TIT. Lightning belted into the ground close bye, but he stayed on, nonplussed; daydreaming in the comfort of his chair. There might well be other psychological reasoning to be challenged here, but one thing is for sure, being from the tropical Kimberley, he had seen it all before. One of the television storm moments I will never forget is when Les Hiddins sat upon a rocky outcrop in the Top End to relax at the end of along hot day, and to watch a storm build and drop its load of fire and water over the tropical Norther Territory savannas and escarpments. This would influence my Godzilla versus the Arnhem Land Escarpment infected in the high humidity, where temperatures sat between 30°c to 40°c night and day. I went on ahead by myself leaving my friends along the track and climbed to the top of the escarpment at Ubirr, to watch the sun setting over the floodplains in the west, and to swing 360 degrees to view the rest of the ancient landscape, which consists of monsoon rainforest and floodplain, and the vastness of the tall Arnhem Land Escarpment. Now, this supercell had decided to explode over the escarpment and lightning spat down onto the ridge tops, as the grey hand of God drifted eerily over me and the other onlookers. Amongst the many thoughts racing through my mind at the time was that this dramatic scene was like something out of an old Japanese Godzilla film, and whilst a distant flock of magpie geese flew on towards safety, fires began springing up in the savanna below as lightning made its mark. impossible to reach the speeds I used to as a youngster. I arrived back at our hire van and stood thankfully in the gushing tropical rain. “And what of the ranger guide?" Well, we met up with her later in the evening and she told my friends and I that she had to dive and grab two tourists who almost fell as lightning shot down, almost hitting them half way down the side of the huge rock outcrop! "All in a day’s work hey, at least she gets to see the storms; the dry season visitors don't." rhe noisiest city on Earth...coastal Darwin LICAVULLO GLU LULL s1UG Vil y LLUlil ULL black cloud banks, signaling the "7. “me. deg coming cyclone. I drove on through floodplains, fearfully of rushing floodwaters. On arrival to Darwin, six strikes close to my brother’s house made it too dangerous an attempt to grab the video camera from the campervan. It was from a dramatic Dripstone Cliffs where we would watch the paradise of sunset to the west, over the Arafura Sea, while the storms that followed us from Kakadu lurched into action from the east- upon a darkening Darwin. The next day the cooler 30° C midday temperature deceived us of relief however, as the humidity lingered at a merciless 98% the entire day, making any movement riddled with perspiration. We readied my brother’s house for the coming mayhem, moving towards the cooling fan after any task was completed. Leaving a dog to the coming weather, and flying out at 1am, as lighting still spread its jagged white and orange glow across the night, felt very surreal, a moment I would also repeat a few years later as a cyclone bore down on my beloved Darwin once again. sung the praise of four flange-delayed whip-cracks, in one almighty burst of energy! Darwin just has to be the noisiest city on earth. The day before my first cyclone in Darwin, in 2002, I was sitting on the couch in my unit in Rapid Creek when the ground began to shake. It was my first experience of Darwin’s earth tremors, the main quake 200km north in the Banda Sea. I was hissing at a cat from my balcony in Nightcliff (as single men do on a Saturday night) which prowled nightly in the mangroves across the road, when an earthquake hit Darwin in 2010. Its epicenter was also 200km to the north in the Banda Sea. It was much more powerful than the previous tremors I had felt in Darwin and I could hear the jip board cracking in my rooftop as I rushed to the door, only to have the door lock jam. It was quite scary, and don’t hassle cats man! Anyway, after readying my unit for my first cyclone back in 2002, I went to help Shamrock’s 10 best tings to do whilst visiting Darwin Alright, I had to do it; I will discuss the things tourists should do if they only have a short stay here. When my brother married we had about ten of our close friends from Cronulla visiting Darwin. It was so much fun, but I wish more of my friends from down south had visited whilst they were in their mischievous 20’s and early 30’s, because this place, as the many Irish that reside here put it... “tis bloody good craic!” day, whilst most other tropical and subtropical regions reach their maximum temperatures after midday and usually taper off with the incoming sea breeze. I have recognised this myself when travelling to Asian regions, where it is much cooler throughout the majority of the day as compared to Darwin’s- stuck on 11 out of 10- ‘Spinal Tap’- temperature gage. I personally find February to be the hottest month of the year, especially if the monsoon does not deliver its cooling cloud banks. Y ou can become exhausted travelling just 200m on foot then. The buildup of afternoon storms in February deliver very high humidity, but then again early-mid December is brutal ————————_-”«—(i‘(‘COé NLL, A leew: Beak len mes Dic Pha ecacmmmomccex: “bareax Kimberly landscapes by Katie Bradley ~ 300m above Wyndam, WA, where five Kimberly rivers meet.
