Darwin is Australia’s smallest and not to mention its hottest capital city. The population of around 175,000 enjoy just two, equally hot seasons - six months of dry and six months of wet. We’re here for a few days in the “build-up” - the dry season has ended and the wet season is just getting its act together. Somewhat cloudy skies, hot, humid with occasional downpours

The city has more of a Southeast Asia than Australia feel to it. Until 1911, the Northern Territory was the “Northern Territory of South Australia” when administration was taken over by the Federal Government after a property scam left the South Australia state government paying out a large legal settlement. The SA government had sold off land in the NT to investors with the promise of large gold deposits which never materialized. Darwin, then still known as Palmerston was little more than a colonial settlement prone to destruction by wet season cyclones. With the outbreak of WWII and particularly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Darwin found itself in the frontline of Australia’s defense against an anticipated attempted Japanese invasion. On February 19, 1942 Japan launched an aerial assault on Darwin which although resulted in fewer fatalities was far greater in intensity than the attack on Pearl Harbor. The city was badly damaged and most of the non-fighting age population was hastily evacuated.

Although Darwin and other parts of northern Australia were frequently the target of air raids, the anticipated Japanese invasion never happened. War history still dominates the city; for that matter, Darwin is still very much in the front line and home to a fairly large US military contingent. Darwin was rebuilt after the war but was again almost totally destroyed by Cyclone Tracy which scored a direct hit on the city on Christmas Day, 1974. Most of the population were once more evacuated as many homes were either very badly damaged or totally destroyed.

As a result of Tracy, building codes in Darwin were upped to ensure that all new structures are built to withstand even the strongest cyclones with little or no damage. Darwin now has a few high-rise buildings, mostly residential and quite a few high-priced mansions overlooking the city’s lengthy waterfront. Not that too many people venture into the water! Now protected salt-water crocodiles are plentiful.

Darwin’s harbour is mostly kept free of crocodiles (poisonous jellyfish with a nasty painful sting are a bigger hazard!) but despite their name, these crocs prefer freshwater so even swimming in rivers and waterholes has to be done with great care!

An anonymous soldier penned a doggerel in 1941 (now on display in a city military museum) which sums up Darwin at the time. Here’s the first verse:

The bloody town’s a bloody cuss,

No bloody trams, no bloody bus,

And no one cares for bloody us,

Oh bloody, bloody Darwin

I guess Darwin has improved (a bit) since then.....