Chapter 13 - Darwin, Australia

Finally! Australia! We’ve planned this trip so many times and even booked it (and had to cancel) once! But now we’re here for two and a half glorious weeks!
Customs was a breeze in each country till now. But here we had to go through a bio-inspection. Australia is very strict about allowing food stuffs into the country. Remember that cheese grater that we got from the nice waiter in Dubrovnik? We had to declare that and take our chances. The inspector was very nice. She looked at the grater and saw that it was actually manufactured in Italy. She said she would need to look it up,

and came back with a sad frown on her face. We assumed that we would have to give it up. Then she broke into a smile that said “gotcha” and said we could keep it.

We began our Australian adventure in Darwin in the Northern Territory— home to more than 100,000 crocodiles we hear tell. And so we decided to go see some up close and personal.

At Crocosaurus Cove, we entered a plexiglass enclosure, and were lowered into the crocodile aquarium with William and Kate (parents of the two baby crocodiles we got to pet).
The worst part was the ladder we used to climb in and out of the “cage of death“ which hurt our feet. The crocs were awesome in every way!

The city of Darwin is so pretty, full of flowers and birds, and even a huge bat flew overhead! We tried to look it up and it appears that they have over 35 bat species in the Northern Territory, the largest being the flying fox.
One of the nearest things here is that they allow you to walk diagonally across an intersection! How ingenious! Why doesn’t everyone do this?
Our “city resort” looked like it was in a jungle.

Darwin is HOT! Every building is cantilevered or has an awning. Even the swimming pool has a canopy over most of it. There are a lot of alfresco restaurants and the food is delicious! Bill Bryson, in “In a Sunburned Country” raves about the bacon and steaks. He eats a lot of pub steaks! And we can attest that the bacon is excellent – – different from American, and not quite Canadian! And there is nothing but steaks in every pub. Now we understand! We got to try crocodile meat too! And yes, it tastes like chicken! It was curried, so we really don’t know how a crocodile really tastes.
The Darwin Harbor Bicentennial Park is lined with war Memorial signs depicting the Japanese bombing of Darwin in World War II. It was poignant to note how local feelings of being at the end of the world where nothing bad can reach them ended on February 19, 1942.

Great Australian
Road Signs
#1

Seen after driving at least ten minutes on a two lane highway. Wouldn’t this be too late?