The ship is docked at Fort Hill Wharf &
Cruise Ship Terminal in Frances Bay, just a 15 minute walk along the Darwin
Waterfront to the CBD (Central Business District)
It was another sunny morning, with clouds
around the horizon, wind again, but not as strong as yesterday. The temperature
was 28 C with a predicted high of 33 C.
No doubt some passengers will get confused due
to yesterday’s hour change to the ship’s time, which is 30 minutes slower than
Darwin time. Darwin time is a 30 minute zone like Canada’s Newfoundland. There
was a note in the daily Cruise Compass about the time difference and a reminder
on the ship’s Morning Show.
The ship is docked within a 15 minute walk
of the city center. There is an outdoor
glass elevator from the waterfront to the level of the main business area, like
the outdoor elevators we encountered in Lisbon, Portugal and Valetta, Malta
last fall.
The Australian Customs officials will be
onboard today to facilitate the Tourist Refund Scheme claims for passengers who
have made large dollar amount purchases in Australia. It is like getting a Value Added Tax purchase
refund in Europe and Britain.
Our on
land exploring was a two hour guided Walking Tour of Darwin in the morning. We applied plenty of sunscreen and took our
hats and bottled water. By noon the
temperature was 32 C and partly sunny.
There was not any rain. In the
late 1830s the crew of the ship “Beagle” sailed past the site and decided to
honour Charles Darwin and called the place Port Darwin. With the harbour’s discovery by a European in
the late 1860s, however, settlement of the area began. Darwin Harbour is larger than Sydney’s
Harbour. On the “Beagle’s’” previous voyage from 1831 to 1836, Charles Darwin
carried on his research that lead to the publishing of the book “Origin of
Species”, which discounted the bible’s creation story and presented his Theory
of Evolution. The settlers who landed in
1869 decided they did not want anything to do with Darwin and his contentious
theory and named the town Palmerston. North Territory was annexed to South
Australia with the administration center in Palmerston in the north and
Adelaide in the south. However the South Australia government decided to change
the town’s name to Darwin in 1911 and now there is a suburb called Palmerston. It was decided in 1870 that the telegraph submerged
cable from London, which snaked through India and Indonesia, should come ashore
at Darwin to run to Adelaide by the Outland Telegraph Company. The distance was
3,200 km from Port Darwin to the coast of South Australia. The telegraph then continued
on to Sydney. The port was linked be cable to Java on August 22, 1872. Along the side of the telegraph lines ran a rutted
single track trail which horses and carts used and the first car drove to
Darwin in 1908. By the old Court House
is the top third of the original first telegraph pole.
Our guide, John, mentioned that Qantas
airline was started to serve Queensland and Northern Territory. The name is an acronym for Queensland and northern
territory aerial service.
We saw the restored and rebuilt buildings
destroyed in the 1974 Cyclone Tracy, such as the old Courthouse and Police
Station. The redesigned Christ Church
Anglican Cathedral uses a wall of the old church and a modern glass
building. The porch of the church was
added as a memorial of post office workers killed in the 1942 bombing. Reclaimed stones from the old post office
were used in its construction.
In two days is the 75th anniversary of the
first bombing of Darwin on February 19, 1942.
We saw tents being set up in Bicentennial Park, overlooking Lameroo
Beach, near the Leichardt war memorial for one of the ceremonies. We saw three
groups of soldiers moving field artillery to the positions for honorary artillery
gun salutes on Sunday. The Japanese planes attached just before 10 a.m. Darwin
was expecting some attention since just four days before, Singapore had been
attacked, which Britain had thought would never happen. The Allies used Darwin as the major supply
point for the Pacific operations. Of the
43 American and British ships in harbour at the time of the attack, eight were
sunk and 23 were damaged. More civilians
were killed and more tons of bombs fell on Darwin than on the Pearl Harbour
attack just 10 weeks earlier. American Kittyhawk fighters were used in the
defense of Darwin. Japanese bombs destroyed the defense, administration and
communication systems and there were over 60 raids of the northern coast in the
next two years. Northern Territory hosted a number of air bases during World
War 2 to defend the South Pacific. Reconstruction of the infrastructure of
Darwin included the construction of the Barkley and Stuart highways. In 1958, the Australian Government sent out a
worldwide request to salvage the wrecked ships that still littered the harbour. The only response was from the Japanese
company Fujita Salvage which worked to remove the metal from ships and debris
along the railway from 1959 to 1961. In
2010, Mr. Fujita presented the Darwin Library with 200 photos of the salvage
operation. There were pictures of receptions on the raised ship MV “British Motorist”
which served as the accommodation for the Japanese workers. In the 21st century the crew salvaging the
Costa “Concordia” also lived on the ship, once it was righted, as they were
preparing to release the ship from the rocks where it was stuck.
We viewed the new Parliament House, which
also houses the library which had free Wi-Fi, and the new Courthouse as well as
the old government residence house, which was not badly damaged in the bombing.
We saw pictures of aviation pioneers who made solo flights like travelling from
Darwin to London in a little over 9 days in the 1920s and 1930s. Even pilot,
Amelia Erhardt stayed in Darwin. We finished our walk along the Smith Street
pedestrian mall and were shown the Information Center where the shuttle buses
took passengers back to the ship for a cost of $20 for an all day pass. We walked back taking the outdoor elevator
down to the waterfront and along the wharf.
The temperature was about 32 C.
After
lunch we returned to the library, for Wi-Fi and to check their atlas, then, did
some souvenir shopping. Men’s belts made from Crocodile skin were available in
several of the better souvenir stores.
The jewelry stores had lots of lovely necklaces and rings made from
pearl and opal mounted in gold or silver.
We stopped at Hot Tamale for a glass of Sangria and a Sol beer before
returning to the ship.
AS we walked through the security check in
the terminal, I realized that my Seapass card printing had been smeared. I had touched the face of it with a sweaty
sunscreened hand and some of the print had disappeared on the front. It was not a problem for the security check
or the Seapass card process to board the ship, since the bar code on the back
was not affected. When onboard, I went
directly to the Guest Relations Desk and was issued a new Seapass card.
The theme for tonight’s dress code is
tropical, but not many passengers wore colourful or tropical inspired clothes
to the dining room.
We chose from the menu tonight Cauliflower Soup,
Seafood Salad and Vegetable Samosas as starters. The main course was with Beef Bourguignon
with rice or Thai-style shrimp on rice.
For dessert we chose Chocolate Bread Pudding, Butter Pecan Ice Cream or
Passion Fruit Meringue Tart.
Since the ship leaves later tonight a movie,
The Girl on the Train, was shown in the big theatre. About half of the people stayed to the end.
Starting at 8:30 the Big Tropical Deck Party
was held on Deck 11 by the pool with lots of music and high spirits.
At 10 p.m. the ship sailed out of Darwin
Harbour into the Timor Sea en route to Benoa, Bali, Indonesia, which is the
destination after two more sea days.
Steps
today 20,112, the most steps walked so far.
No comments:
Post a Comment