FUN-travel: Slow Boat to Singapore – 13th Port – Darwin, Australia – Day 31
March 2, 2016 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on FUN-travel: Slow Boat to Singapore – 13th Port – Darwin, Australia – Day 31
Thursday, February 25th
- Just a 10-minute taxi ride from city center The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory features an extensive display of Aboriginal art. (And about the only thing that sounded interesting to do in Darwin.)
- Also on exhibit is Sweetheart. And doesn’t she look sweet? She is a saltwater crocodile, not to be confused with a fresh water crocodile. Oh, and yes, there is a big difference! And it’s all in the size and the snout. At over 15 feet long she was responsible for a series of attacks on boats in Australia between 1974 and 1979. Sweetheart attacked outboard motors, dinghies, and fishing boats. In July 1979, she was finally caught alive by a team from the Territory Parks and Wildlife Commission, but drowned while being transported when she became tangled with a log.
- One of a handful of buildings that was not destroyed by Cyclone Tracy, Brown’s Mart was built in the 1880’s as a mining exchange.
FUN-fact – Crocodile Dundee was based on life in the Top End – the northernmost region of Australia, isolated geographically and physically from the rest of the Northern Territory, and the world.
Not so FF – Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin on Christmas Day, 1974 and obliterated the city.
- Tonight’s the night we set our clocks back the other 30 minutes.
