Darwin is the smallest, wettest, and most northerly of the Australian capital cities. It is built upon a low bluff overlooking Darwin Harbor. On September 9, 1839, HMS Beagle sailed into Darwin Harbor during its survey of the area. John Clements Wickham named the region “Port Darwin” in honor of their former shipmate Charles Darwin, who had sailed with them on the ship’s previous voyage. Charles Darwin, himself, never made it to the city. The settlement there became the town of Palmerston in 1869 but was renamed Darwin in 1911. This city has been almost entirely rebuilt four times, following devastation caused by a cyclone in 1897, another one in 1937, Japanese air raids during WWII (the Japanese dropped more bombs here than in Pearl Harbor), and Cyclone Tracy in 1974. Consequently, it is a very new city, with its buildings now built to withstand the high winds that accompany a cyclone.
We took the shuttle bus into Darwin and shopped our way through downtown before taking a walk along the esplanade and waterfront back to our ship. The temperature today is 88 degrees and the “feels like” temperature is 102 degrees. The humidity here is incredible! You can almost see it hanging in the air. It is completely counterintuitive to be traveling north and experience the temperatures rising. As we get nearer the equator that will remain the case. By the time we returned to the ship we were dripping wet. A workout and a steam combined will allow us to skip the gym today.
The photos below were taken primarily in the Centennial Park district. We may venture back out into the city to take in a museum tour after we cool off. If so, I’ll update with anything worth seeing.
Today’s fun fact: With the conversion of AU dollars to US dollars all of the clothing purchased was 40% off. This lead me to spend the cool down time in our cabin rearranging “the vortex” that is our closet. We are finding that there isn’t enough warm weather clothing packed to cover these extremely hot temperatures and the laundry turnaround time. We have some really big “First World” problems to solve here on the Odyssey.
Love reading about your adventures!!
I am truly enjoying reading all of your adventures! Don’t lose Joe in the vortex but I could picture him standing just looking in. It reminds me when we were kids and he’d stand in front of the refrigerator looking for something to eat and mom would yell at him the clothes are refrigerator. That said he never could get lost there but your Vortex could be an issue.