Darwin, Australia

February 22, 2025

First of all to follow up on my last post. In my last post I reported that my cough had come back, well it got so bad ,that I decided to see the ship doctor. He put me on some antibiotics and gave me a stronger cough syrup. Even with the medication I still cought up a storm through the night. Poor Carol, I kept her up too all night(sorry dear)  I checked with the lady in the cabin next to us if I kept her up, she said she shuts off her hearing aid and can’t hear a thing.

Today we are in Darwin Australia.Capital City of the northern territories. Darwin has a population of around 150,000. The Northern Territory as a whole has a population of approximately 300,000. The main industries are tourism and mining. The first impression of the City is that it looks very new and modern, this is because it was heavily bombed in the second world war. Then it  received a direct hit from tropical storm “Tracy” in 1974, which levelled most of the City. This morning we had a small tour to visit the museum shared by the attack on Darwin in the war and the work of the Royal Flying Doctors. First off all we enjoyed the 3D movie showing of the  surprise attack by the Japanese in 1942. After that we learned of all the work the flying doctors are doing bringing health care to the Australian outback. They also look after medical emergency evacuation from the outback. For those of you who are interested in this, there is a drama tv show on Prime highlighting the work of the “flying”  doctors. After leaving the war  museum, our next stop was the aviation museum. In this museum, we found a collection of retired airplanes . The highlight for me was the B-52 bomber. The plane was so large, that I couldn’t get a good picture showing the whole plane. After spending an hour or so at this place, we departed from here back to the ship. We had the option to get dropped off in the center of the city instead of going back to the ship. We chose the center. Our first stop was at a Chinese restaurant to have some lunch. Here I had some nice chicken satey with peanut sauce and Carol had a large bowl of Wonton soup. The next stop was at the supermarket for some more Tim Tans for the crew and cough syrup. The temperatures were very hot and humid today that’s very usual here for this time of the year. Having enough of the sweltering heat, we boarded the shuttle bus back to the boat. We sat down for our 5 clock happy hour with our friends sharing stories of outings for the day. Unfortunately, I am on Heineken 0.0 for the duration of my medication.

Cheers

Cor and Carol