Week 7: (Part 1) Darwin
This week we were in Darwin for the first half and then headed down to Litchfield National Park for the rest of the week.
We arrived in Darwin on Sunday the 7th of August and planted ourselves at the Howard Springs Big4 Holiday Park. That night we went to the Mindil Beach Markets as previously mentioned in the last blog post. The next day we had a rest day in the caravan park. We did 4 load of washing and relaxed in the caravan, by the pool and in the water park. We really enjoyed not driving or going anywhere and having a slow relaxed day. It is something we needed after so much travel.
The next day we headed up towards Darwin. We wanted to see some of the WW2 sites and have a look around Darwin city. Our first stop was the Quarantine Anti-Aircraft Battery. It was quite interesting and had a number of ruins including an underground situation room.
From there we headed up to Charles Darwin National Park where we had a look at a number of “Bomb Dumps” – ammunition storage facilities. They have a great display in one of the bunkers with a lot of information and accounts during WW2. This spot is well worth a look. At the end of the road there is a lookout which overlooks Darwin city as well.
After that we headed into the city where we had lunch and a look at some of the shops. From the shops we walked to the WW2 underground Oil Storage Tanks. There are 2 tanks open to the public which are accessed via the same tunnel. The tanks are unbelievably big with one being 77m long and the other 176m long and both around 4.5m high and 5m wide. The long tunnel has a really well set up display inside and we found it highly informative. It is $8 entry for an adult and is great value.
We were feeling very hot after our walking so we decided to go to the Palmerston Water Park which has free entry. The park itself doesn’t have any swimming pools but has some water spraying features, an open water slide and some kids pools. We had a great time!
It was now late afternoon/early evening and we made a last stop at 16 Mile Camp. 16 Mile Camp is a WW2 site where Australian soldiers were posted and dug themselves in. The idea was that this would be a post for Australia to defend itself from a Japanese land invasion. Scary stuff!
The next day we did our big grocery shop and gave the Jeep and Caravan a wash, it looked like new, and then headed out of Darwin.
