Wednesday 30th June 2004 - Day 290/366 - Darwin, Northern Territory.

Help I'm Melting

Walked down to Doctors Gully which is a site of historic importance and they also hand feed the tropical fish at high tide. During WW2 the gully was used as a launch pad for the flying boats to bomb Japan. Prior to that it was the site of a hospital and the cities first water supply. Now it's just a stagnant water creek.

It's a pleasant walk up the esplanade although the beach is all Mangroves and the port is a naval base and there are lots of container ships. You end up at the Wharf having passed the Deckchair Cinema, which shows films nightly outdoor and on deckchairs (funnily enough). Fantastic idea I think I'm going to open one in Fleet.

I took a self guided tour ($4.50) up the WW2 oil storage tunnels. Constructed in 1942 these massive tunnels were used to protect the oil from the falling Japanese bombs. Inside it's now a photo gallery of the destruction reeked on Darwin.

It took a while to get to the end of the wharf and once there I wasn't entirely sure why I'd bothered, but they did serve the best Barramundi.

I was just thinking how different Darwin was to the rest of Oz when as if to prove my point a massive lizard thingy crossed my path. Noone seemed the slightest bit perturbed.

Read Apollo 13. The book written by Jim Lovell the Apollo 13 commander details the disaster that nearly happened in space on there mission to the moon. The book was subsequently made into a movie, with Tom Hanks. I'm sure you've all seen it. Anyway I thought the film was good, but the book is better. It's quite technical but even plebs like me can understand it. It's amazing the number of problems that stemmed from the one and how they methodically worked through it and got the boys home. It's made even more amazing, because when I went to Houston and saw the Mission Control, i'd have been amazed if they could make a lego set with the archaic systems that they had, but they did. or did they?