Some Darwin History

There was a heck of a storm here last night, and Vas and I are on the 8^th floor, looking out over the Gulf, where most of the action is.

Sheet lighting lit up the sky for more than an hour.. better than fireworks!  The sun was setting and the sky blazed red, white, yellow and blue.  Electric. And I guess it is pretty common here.. the high humidy and high temperatures result in nightly electrical storms. 

There is an oil painting on the wall of our room here at the Holiday Inn on the Eslanade… I thought it was a cheap piece of hotel art when we arrived, but it’s the image of what’s outside the window at about 7pm most nights: not bad at all. 

They tell us there is a cyclone building up in the gulf as well.  Cairns got hit by ‘Tasha’ on Christmas and now it appears it may be Darwin’s turn. 

Hey, when you have nothing much to really do or think about, there is always the weather.  And for a place that only has two seasons, the Wet and the Dry, weather plays a pretty major role.

Well.. weather and history. 

There is a graveyard just up the road here, and I will check it out a little later, but for now, some background:  

The Aboriginal people are said to have lived in this area for tens of thousands of years.. the Larrakia being the language group of the Darwin area. 

The Didjeridoo is said to have originated around here some place.  The locals are also famous for their bark art and sand sculptures: haven’t seen a lot of those yet though.  

In the 17^th Century the Dutch arrived and left their mark calling the area Arnhem land: one of the five regions of the NT.   

The first Brit arrived in Darwin Harbor in 1839.  Then finally in the 1870’s, Australia was connected with the rest of the world by the  Australian Overland Telegraph.


By the time the 20thC arrived there were more Chinese people living in Darwin than Europeans.  'China Town' made up most of the CBD (Central Business District).

The first pearlers of this area were the Aboriginal people.  They worked in dangerous conditions for little or no pay.  Then Japanese pearl divers were ‘employed’.  Death by pearling was about 50%: not good.  Maybe that was part of the reason that:

On 19 February 1942, 188 Japanese warplanes attacked Darwin. (It wasn’t really the pearls at all.. it was WWII). It was the same fleet that had bombed Pearl Harbor (Pearl? Harbour) in the U.S. just ten weeks earlier.

243 people were killed during that attack.  In the following two years, the Japanese would strike another 58 times.  The area filled with military personnel:  there are air strips dotted all over this area.  I can see a small naval base from my room. 

Then on Christmas Day 1974, Darwin was attacked yet again: this time by Cyclone Tracy.  71 people were killed and 70% of Darwin’s buildings were destroyed. They have had a few of those, but that one was actually Australia's worst Natural Disaster, at least until the fires that hit southern Australiea in 2008 when I was in Alice. 

Vas was living in Darwin by 1980 and they were still rebuilding, using a lot of steel and what they call ‘tropo’ architecture.  He said when he was here there were a lot of houses that were just foundations... the top had been blown away, cleaned up, and no one yet had the funds to rebuiild. 

But no worries..Vas and I have made it through Christmas Day in Darwin thus far: it's Boxing Day and we have some shopping to do.  The sun is out and all is well.

Merry Christmas! 

Darwin Naval Base as seen from our Hotel