March 4 - Goodbye to the Lands Down Under

It’s hard to believe but I’ve been away from home for 6 and a half weeks and on the ship for 6 weeks. Time does fly when you’re having fun.  When last I wrote I was on my way to see Amber’s show and I feel compelled to write about it.  Amber is a bright star in the list of entertainers on the ship. IMHO she is as good or better than some of the guest entertainers we’ve had onboard. I don’t know where her future lies, but she can do anything she likes.  I don’t know that she’ll ever read this, but if she does I think she should know that  I think her jazz and scatting are excellent.

Today  we were in Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory. It was hot and humid as our last few ports have been.  Nonetheless we had a nice time here.  The Northern Territory is Australia’s least populated state with only about 250,000 people, most of whom live in Darwin.  In terms of area the Northern Territory occupies over 520,000 sq.miles, large enough to fit two states of Texas inside its boundaries, yet it has less than one per cent of the population of Australia.  The city is also pretty unique because except for two buildings that were spared, the rest of the city is new construction built after 1974. In 1974 Cyclone Terry struck Darwin on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and destroyed everything.  The rebuilt city is quite beautiful with lovely parks and green spaces interspersed throughout the downtown area.

Northern Territory Parliament Buikding

My friend Claudia and I didn’t book a ship’s tour instead deciding to check some things out on our own.   There was a shuttle that ran back and forth to a small museum at the other side of an inlet near our stern.  The museum tells the story of the Royal Flying Doctors Service and the bombing of Darwin on February 19, 1942.  Both were fascinating to learn about.  Actually I’ve been learning a lot about Australia that I never knew before.  For example, I had no idea that Australia has more than a million wild camels.  They were introduced to the country from Afghanistan in the 19th century.  Now they occasionally have to be culled and some are sold to Middle Eastern countries like the UAE.

Back to the Royal Flying Doctors Service.  The population of Australia is around 27 million with most of it concentrated on the eastern and southern coasts.  The vast majority of land in the middle is sparsely populated and has very limited access to health care.  At the beginning of the 20th century Reverend John Flynn, a Presbyterian minister, became acutely aware of this fact and he began to lobby and work to find a way to bring health care to the outback and bush population.  Over the years with the help of pedal generators to provide electricity for radios in remote places so that people could call for help and biplanes initially to provide transportation, the service was begun.  Now the service operates about 80 jets outfitted with equipment comparable to an ICU to reach remote areas and provide health and dental care and even medical education.  A short video showed the history of the service and it was remarkable to see some of the places the pilots fly in and out of.  Many times they are landing on dirt tracks with the only landing lights being burning tar pots.  The Service is a non-profit organization which does receive some funding from the Australian government but the rest comes from donations.

A plane in the museum

The other display in the building was an immersive experience depicting the bombing of Darwin on the 19th of February 1942.  Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941 Japan was continuing its movement and occupation of islands in the southwest Pacific region. They had already captured the islands of Ambon, Borneo and Sulawesi and they were preparing to invade Timor and Java.  After the attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, the Allies had begun building up forces in northern Australia to try to defend the Netherland East Indies so Australian army and naval forces had been positioned in and around Darwin. It was also an important cargo port to resupply troops fighting to keep the Japanese from conquering the islands. The Japanese decided to bomb Darwin to prevent the forces there from interfering with their invasion scheduled for February 20th.  On the morning of the 19th the Japanese launched 188 planes to attack Darwin, both the city and the harbor where there were a number of naval vessels as well as cargo ships.  The attack created chaos in Darwin and effectively ended for the immediate future the possibility of cargo resupply of positions in Java and other nearby islands.  This was the first of sixty-four raids on Darwin and 97 total on northern Australia during the course of the war.  I had no idea that these happened.  I guess we tend to focus our attention on events that are closer to home for us like the fighting our forces did in places like Guadalcanal.

It's hard to convey how this display worked. We stood on a platform which beneath our feet had Darwin harbor. When the air raid siren sounded on that screen in front of us there were Japanese planes flying straight at us firing machine guns and there were bombs dropping in the harbor at our feet.  It felt very real as the things came toward us.

At this little museum all the proceeds go to the Royal Flying Service.  There was a nice gift shop and we each found a great hat and scarves to buy.  I probably didn’t need either but they were nice looking and I figured the money was going to a good cause.

After we left the museum we took another shuttle to CBD Darwin.  I had to have that term CBD explained to me.  It means Central Business District as opposed to a compound from cannabis.  We looked into a few shops but didn’t see anything really interesting.  It is a pretty downtown though because I mentioned above it’s all new and well-planned.

Smith Street Mall in downtown Darwin

We went back to the ship and took it easy for the rest of the day.  The heat and humidity are very draining on me.  Tomorrow is another sea day as we head northwest to Timor and Indonesia.