When you leave Alice, you leave the Outback and the desert. When you arrive in Darwin, you hit the tropics. Where Alice weather is hot and dry, Darwin's is hot and very humid! Up here, in the Top End (as it is affectionately known), the seasons are divided into the Big Wet, the Little Wet and the Dry. So when it is not rainy, you know that it will rain some time soon!
Ten years ago, Darwin was a place where Croc Dundee characters actually did exist. I was here then and saw the croc skin jerkins, the broad rimmed, battered hats complete with croc teeth bands and vehicles that seemed like they had seen it all, been there and back and had it all for breakfast. These guys deserved the swagger with which they walked! Here was their frontier town and the world be damned!
But times seem to have changed in Darwin. Whatever the reasons are, Darwin is Australia's gateway to its Asian neighbours. So much money is pouring into the city and its infrastructure, that it is a place almost unrecognisable! No more Croc Dundees on the main street; no more of their swagger either. Instead the main road is all cafe culture and upmarket road side wine bars and restos. Where once there was a single high rise building, there is now plenty more. Darwin is to Asia what London is to Europe. You are never more than a cheap flight away!
But if you scratch a little, the old Darwin is still there. Despite its changing facade, you still can't swim in the sea here. In the water here are the stingers, a box jellyfish that kills; there are the "salties", crocodiles that are saltwater tolerant and extremely aggressive (you can only imagine what it must be like to endure salt chaffing your skin under all that armour!); last, but no means least, are the sharks. Here the warm tropical waters are filled with the likes of great whites, makos, bull and tiger sharks! Swimming is a no-no then.
Many people don't know (unless you have watched the recently released "epic" film, Australia), that Darwin was under Japanese attack for two years during WWII. During those two years, the town was bombed 142 times! It was on the first attack that the Japanese actually dropped more munitions than they did on Pearl Harbour! Leading up to that date, the Japanese Imperial Army was so successful that their advance southwards swept aside all resistance and Darwin was Australia's last line of defence!
Defeat Darwin and the northern approaches to Australia were wide open. Needless to say, Japan never occupied any part of Australia and the tide was eventually turned against Japan. The rest they say is history.
We left Darwin with a very evocative image. Down at the Wharf district, the sun had set with an explosion of colours that eventually gave way to the warm dark of a tropical night. The wharf lights cast their orange halogen glow and insects dance in and out of the light. Contemplating the distant lightening show across the horizon are two blokes on their deckchairs, with hands clasped behind their heads and an eski full of beer between them with not a care in the world.
Nice.