This turned out to be an excellent choice, as the Tiwi Islands ferry caught fire on the way back (at about 4:15pm), burnt out the engines (so it couldn’t go anywhere), and everyone (184 people) was rescued and returned to Darwin just before midnight. The ferry was full of people. The enclosed seating areas were filled with smoke, there were a lot of elderly people on board who had difficulty moving, and there were also a lot of young children and families from the Tiwi Islands, who probably didn’t speak much English. People panicked, ran everywhere and threatened to trample others, according to two people who were there. Nobody went overboard into crocodile infested waters. By the time I talked to them two days later, my informants had decided they would prefer to be eaten by crocodiles than to be burnt or trampled to death.
So instead, I changed hotels, washed all my clothes, and decided to visit Burnett House (one of the few houses in Darwin that survived the Japanese air raids and the defence forces during WWII (they used houses as targets for practice), and cyclone Tracey in 1974. Unfortunately, I walked in the opposite direction to the way I should have, and ended up in Stokes Wharf rather than Cullen Bay.
As a result, I visited the WWII oil storage tunnels (built to store oil for the planes).
Through Fort Hill parkland, past the NT Governor’s House,
Around the deck chair cinema
Then I walked along Bicentennial Park, next to The Esplanade. There are a number of monuments here to WWII - the survivors lookout, the memorial to those killed, the memorial to the USS Perry (which was unluckily being fueled when the first Japanese attack occurred).
There was even a memorial to Leichhardt.
I’d never realised that ibises had lots of colours in their dark wings.
No comments:
Post a Comment