Darwin, Australia, is the perfect example of what it means to rise like a Phoenix. This was our first visit to Darwin but we knew that it had quite a history from WWII. Little did we know how much more there was to their history.
As we peeked out through parted curtains the morning of our
arrival, we were pleased to see blue skies. It is monsoon season in the
Northern Territory and the Weatherbug had predicted a 90% chance of rain for
most of the day. We still packed our rain insurance—the umbrellas before
setting off to explore.
Bob had bought Hop On Hop Off bus tickets for the day. We planned to sit inside if it rained but it looked like we’d enjoy the open deck. There was a cruise shuttle provided for the fifteen minute ride into the city. You could walk, they said, in twenty minutes but once you stepped outside, you knew that the shuttle was the better choice. As our shuttle driver put it, “We have two kinds of days here. Hot and hotter.”
Darwin being at the northern tip of Australia is much closer
to the equator than the rest of the country and if the heat doesn’t get you,
the humidity will. The temps for the two days hit 90 F and felt like 102.
Unlike Florida which does cool down in the winter, Darwin temperatures remain
fairly steady throughout the year—hot.
As we drove through the city, you could see that it was very
modern looking. Sleek buildings with none of the quaint looks of other cities
in Australia from older buildings of the past. There was a reason for the
modern look. The city has been rebuilt—twice.
On February 19, 1942, just ten weeks after Pearl Harbor, the city of Darwin was bombed heavily by the Japanese. More bombs were dropped on Darwin than on Pearl Harbor to insure that the Allies who had set up military operations for the South Pacific there would be totally crippled. Darwin was not heavily populated and still does not have a really large population but 252 people were killed and most of the city destroyed.
After the war, rebuilding
began in Darwin and the city was doing well. Then came Cyclone Tracy.
On Christmas morning, 1974, Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin full
force. The high winds could not be calculated because the meters were destroyed
in the storm. Once again the city was devastated.
The rebuilding began again only this time there would be new
restrictions in place, new building codes that would withstand the force of
cyclones and buried utility lines that would help to prevent loss of power and
services. It’s much like the precautions now in place for new builds in Florida.
Our ninety minute bus ride took us in a loop that included the Darwin Military Museum on the East Point Road. By the time we finished the loop we had decided to stay on the bus and ride back to the museum and go through it. At least it would be air conditioned. The morning had heated up tremendously and even though the top of the bus had a cover, it was still getting unbearable. We decided to ride out to the museum in the A/C.
A half hour later, we arrived at the museum and were charged
the lower senior prices to enter. Some countries don’t do that for
non-citizens. We discovered that there was an indoor and outdoor section of the
museum. Inside, there were lots of pictures and stories of the war and Darwin
and the country’s involvement.
One large room with benches suddenly sounded an air raid
alarm. The doors closed, all the small display cases went dark and finally the
large display across one end of the room went dark and a video began to play on
the glass as if it were a movie screen. It explained what happened on the day
of the initial bombing in February of 1942. The video was amazing in how it
took still pictures and made them almost appear to be moving. Someone did quite
a job of editing.
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| Of course Bob would find the radio equipment |
When we finished exploring inside, we took a deep breath and walked back out into the heat. There were a lot of vehicles and large guns displayed and one landing craft that was interesting. Some of them had been there for a while as one had a tree growing up inside of it. Still it was a reminder of a time past when freedom was fought for.
We looked at most of it until the heat began to get to us
and then we went back inside where we waited for the next HOHO bus to stop and
take us back to the city. Our other goal for the day was to find a nail salon
and a barber which we did in the large outdoor mall area where the cruise
shuttle and the HOHO dropped passengers. We also found a little indoor place
that sold sandwiches and had the best BLT we’d had in a long time.
Near the cruise terminal was another WWII historical museum, oil tunnels. It was a quick five minute walk first thing in the morning for us while the temperature was still bearable. Again we enjoyed a discounted senior price and began our trek through the tunnels.
When the bombing destroyed the large oil tanks in Darwin, it
was decided that they would build underground tunnels to store the oil. The
plan was to dig eleven tunnels but only built four or five were finished, I
believe. You get to walk through tunnel five and look into tunnel six and along
the way look at pictures of Darwin during the war as well as listen to one man’s
recall of the February bombing. Let me tell you, when they built those tunnels,
the weather wasn’t any cooler inside than it was outside.
One of the most touching things I found in the museums we had visited was the section on the Holocaust and the immigration of many Jews to Australia to escape the persecution. A short history of how Hitler came to power was on one display. Germany was looking for a leader to improve their economy and take them in a new direction. Hitler appealed to them. I took a picture of the display. It reminded me of the book I’d read for a history class my freshman year in college. The book left a profound impression on me on how he rose to power so quickly and what it led to. Every time I see our president raise his fist in triumph, I hear echoes of the past.
