In that same Jetstar sale back in May where we bought our Brisbane tickets, we also purchased tickets to go to Darwin for my birthday weekend. I had over 6 months to look forward to this trip and did absolutely no research until the Monday, 3 days, before we left. Given that I left all planning for the absolute last second, I found a great hotel and plenty of things to do.We arrived late Thursday night, after a long delay in the Melbourne airport due to radar issues on our plane. It did, however, give us time to have a crappy dinner, several glasses of wine and order more wine through Wine Selectors to be shipped to our apartment. (I was a bit surprised when a case and a half showed up on Saturday….) When our taxi pulled up to the Double Tree Darwin, not the Double Tree Esplanade Darwin (next door), at 2:00 AM on Friday morning the lobby looked dark and I was seriously concerned. It was fine though, we got checked into our king bed room, which we were told had a great view of the water, and crashed. By this time it was 4:00 AM in Melbourne and we’d been up for 22 hours.
Friday morning, after sleeping in a bit, we headed out for to find breakfast at Ducks Nuts. The service was terrible, but our food was pretty good. Over breakfast we laid out our game plan for Friday.
First up, Crocosaurus Cove. We arrived just in time for the Big Crocodile Feeding, which seemed a bit more like Big Crocodile Taunting. The caretakers would tie a piece of dead bird to the end of a big stick and slap it against the water until the crocodile came over to them. Then they’d hold it in the air until the crocodile snapped his jaw or jumped out of the water. I think it was really more of a show than actual feeding, and it was fascinating.
This crocodile, whose name I cannot remember, was the newest addition to Crocosaurus Cove. When the caretakers entered his pen to feed/taunt him, he decided he was not interested and sunk to the bottom of his pool.
As we toured Crocosaurus Cove, we came across Burt; he starred in Crocodile Dundee! The caretakers explained to us that crocodiles, like dogs, can be trained using food/treats, toys and positive re-enforcement. (They like to be scratched on the head!) Who knew?!?
The caretakers put on a display of a crocodiles jaw strength using this machine and brick of ice. It was definitely impressive.
After the big crocodiles, we came to the juveniles. The caretaker here mentioned that these guys are extremely dangerous and like to bite. They are about 5 feet long and extremely cute!
These three reminded me of Flotsam & Jetsam from the Little Mermaid.
I mean seriously, check out this image that I grabbed from Disney’s own page.
The last thing we did at Crocosaurus Cove was tour the museum of the different types of Crocodiles, which included the American Alligator (cute compared to the crocodiles around the world). In the museum, the caretaker had a baby crocodile who was about 18 inches long. She offered for me to hold him, so I did! I was surprised how smooth and soft his belly and spiny back were. She told me that even the massive ones we’d seen outside were still this smooth and soft. To prevent him from biting me, she had taped his mouth shut, because their jaw strength is in closing, not opening. I asked her if this hurt his soft skin, but she said she’d first put a layer facing outward so that no sticky stuff would touch him. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take a picture of him or me holding him – she wanted to sell me the picture. The baby crocodile was really cute! If they didn’t get so big and scary, I would want one.
After visiting the crocodiles for the better part of the day, we were extremely hot and decided we should stop for an adult beverage and snack. Shortly after sitting down at Shennanigans, it started pouring down rain. Even with an umbrella, we would’ve been soaking wet. The people of Darwin were not bothered, however, and continued with their regular business. I suppose if you live somewhere with a season called “Wet” you learn to cope. We, on the other hand, waited it out before venturing on our walking tour of the waterfront.
Darwin’s waterfront is quite industrial, so there isn’t a lot to see. It was interesting to see swimming in designated areas only, though, because the crocodiles live in the bay. The swimming beach is caged off to keep the crocodiles out and there is a wave park right on the beach for swimming, tubing and surfing entertainment. The waterfront and pier connect to the park along the Esplanade, which is where our hotel was situated.
It had been an extremely hot day, so we headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up for dinner and watch sunset, which was nothing to write home about. Ben did some research and found Hanuman, which boasted Indian Asian Fusion cuisine. The reviews on Urban Spoon were fantastic, so we gave it a shot. If Hunaman is what happens when Asian food meets Indian food, I am sold. It was amazing; I would recommend it to any fellow traveler to Darwin.
We started day 2 of our 2 day adventure in Darwin by going in search of the WWII Oil Storage Tunnels, which were supposed to be near the waterfront, and we’d seen signs for the day prior but hadn’t actually found yet. All we had to do was open our eyes to see this sign:
We made our way down these stairs and found a chatty veteran who directed us inside. 400 men dug these tunnels out by hand after the Japanese attacked Darwin during WWII to do just as the name suggests, store oil for Naval use. The tunnels were never actually commissioned by the Navy for storage during WWII, however 2 of them were used during the Korean War to store Jet Fuel. 2 of the Oil Storage Tunnels are open for tour, and you can see into a 3rd along the way. The primary tunnel viewed along this tour is #10, which features a photographic display of Darwin during WWII. As an American, I was fascinated to learn that the USAAF was stationed in Darwin during WWII. This is not something I ever remember learning about in school. I also never knew that the Japanese attacked Australia, so this was a whole new exploration of WWII for me.
After touring the tunnels, we decide to take the 4km hike to the Darwin Botanical Garden. It was a HOT day, so as soon as we arrived we stopped in the cafe for a cold beverage and to cool off. Feeling refreshed, we headed into the gardens in search of pretty flowers and local plant life. Ben and I both love botanical gardens usually, so we were pretty excited. Maybe its the time of year, but we were a bit disappointed in the Darwin Botanical Gardens. It was mostly just a big grassy park with a manmade waterfall at one end. The plumeria were blooming, however, so the park smelled amazing!
After wondering around the Darwin Botanic Gardens for a while, we decided to make our way to Mindil Beach, which is supposed to be beautiful and have spectacular sunsets. To get there we passed through this beautiful section of the garden:
We found Mindil Beach, and thought it might be nice to put our feet in the water, until we saw huge signs that said, “Do not enter the water October – May. Box Jellyfish are deadly.” Personally, I like to be alive, so we decided not to enter the water. The sky was looking dark, with lots of thunderbolts and lightening, so we decided to head back toward town.
As we made our way down the street back toward the hotel that we were checked out of, the thunderbolts got louder, the lightening got closer and the sky got darker. We started watching for a taxi, because we were 2km away from where we wanted to be. We walked up to the casino and grabbed a taxi from their cue to take us back into the town. The driver dropped us at The Tap Room just as the rain began. It was perfect timing, because just as we sat down at our table with our beers the rain came in monsoon force and poured for probably an hour and a half.
Realistically, we ran out of things to do about 5 hours before we needed to head to the airport. Had we done more research in advance, we probably would’ve rented a car for the second day and gone out to the national parks, hot springs, or something like that. We’d like to go back and see these things, which we’ll probably do if we take the Gahn Train.
