DARWIN HERE WE ARE!  Finally! Might have to change the name of the blog... Been there - done that? 

The road from Katherine was quite windy & a bit hilly; a nice change. The roadside bushland was surprisingly quite wet; puddles here & there & a lot of palms along the way which only grow where it gets pretty wet. I know they're just getting over the wet season but I guess I just think of the Australian bush as being dry. We followed 4 huge dump trucks from Katherine almost to Adelaide River. That slowed us down quite a bit & you should have seen people trying to overtake them! A bit scary at times.

Darwin is pretty small as far as a capital city goes; only about 120,000 people & it doesn't take long to get from one side to the other. We were in peak hour traffic this afternoon & it wasn't much different from any other time of day.

We booked into a caravan park yesterday; luckily only for one night until we worked out what we were doing. The site was hardly big enough for the van & there were trees on either side; luckily Phill is so good at backing it but it still took a lot of manouevering. Then the taps were so far away that our hose didn't reach & the amenities were terrible & to top it off it was straight opposite the airport & near the RAAF base. From about 3am the next morning the planes taking off were nonstop. There wasn't much sleep happening! So today we moved to another park & it's lovely. We've booked in for 4 nights so we can have a look around Darwin & then on Saturday WE LEAVE FOR SINGAPORE! We've been to the travel agent & booked 5 nights. Yeah! Then by the time we get back all the parks should be open.
 

We had a walk around the city today. The CBD of the city really consists of only two main streets; one with a mall. It's pretty small.

Parliament House is pretty impressive; they call it their 'White House'. It's right in the city beside the water with lovely parklands surrounding it.

The beaches & ports are only a couple of streets away & the marina at Cullen Bay isn't far. It's lovely & there are some lovely estates there with some very big, beautiful houses & lovely apartments.  The marina has a 'lock system' to keep the water in as they have such massive tide shifts. It also protects the area from cyclones.

 

We went to Cullen Bay & Mindil Beach but you can't swim; there are stingers & possibly crocs. These beaches are only about 2kms from the CBD. There are lots of beaches all around Darwin.