Darwin Day 2

31st May 2013

We woke this morning after a good nights sleep and treated ourselves to a spa bath which was part of our room, you never know I could get used to this! We checked out just before 9am and went straight to the Darwin Arts & History Museum. When we got there we had a great breakfast at the cafe overlooking the ocean before heading inside.

The museum was fantastic with the two best known exhibits being that of "Sweetheart" a 5.1m Saltwater Crocodile, who got his name from the billabong he inhabited, that was responsible for several boat attacks in Darwin before being captured in the late 70's. He was captured with a view to being placed in a crocodile park, however due to a bad reaction to the tranquilliser used, Sweetheart died and is now on display at the museum.

As they said in the display, while he is not the biggest croc ever caught, but he was very aggressive and attacked several boats - puncturing holes in aluminium hulls and damaging props and motors, it would have been very scary stuff!!

The girls in front of "Sweetheart"

We also saw the Cyclone Tracey exhibit which just brilliant. To think that the city had been devastated for a second time in its relatively short existence and once again rebuilt was amazing. One of the best parts of the exhibit was the sound booth which was a dark room with actual sounds of the cyclone recorded and replayed - again it would have been very scary.

Our visit to the museum was also part of a project that Maggie wanted to do for school, the history of Darwin and so we gathered lots of great information for her as well.

After the museum, I dropped the girls off in town and then I had to put the car in for a service. While I waited around for a couple of hours, the girls caught a bus out to a large shopping complex in Casuarina where I picked them up from at about 4.30pm before making our way back out to George's place in Marrakai and updating him over a beer or two about the last couple of days.