Wikipedia tells me that Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. The city has nearly 53% of the Northern Territory's population, with 139,902 at the 2021 census. It is the smallest and wettest, although it has not had rain since May 2024. You also need to know that the vast Northern Territory has a sparse population of just under 700,000 but as my taxi driver pointed out, the region and Darwin is attracting new entrants all of the time.
The city is built upon a low bluff overlooking Darwin Harbour.
The Larrakia people are the traditional Aboriginal owners of the Darwin area, and represent a significant proportion of the population. On 9th September 1839, HMS Beagle sailed into Darwin Harbour during its survey of the area. John Clements Wickham named the region "Port Darwin" in honour of Charles Darwin, who had sailed with them on the ship's previous voyage. The settlement then became the town of Palmerston in 1869, but was renamed Darwin in 1911.
The city has been almost entirely rebuilt four times, following devastation caused by a cyclone in 1897, another one in 1937, Japanese air raids during World War II and Cyclone Tracy in 1974.
Around 10,000 Australian and other Allied troops arrived in Darwin at the outset of World War II to defend Australia's northern coast. On 19th February 1942 at 9:57am,188 Japanese warplanes attacked Darwin in two waves. It was the same fleet that had bombed Pearl Harbour, though considerably more bombs were dropped on Darwin. The attack killed at least 243 people and caused immense damage to the town, airfields and aircraft. These were by far the most serious attacks on Australia in time of war, in terms of fatalities and damage and were the first of many raids on Darwin.
The photos are: an aerial view of the vast Darwin Harbour, The Northern Territory Parliament building known as the "Wedding Cake Building" and the Elisabeth Rail Bridge over the eastern arm of the harbour which I crossed aboard the Ghan on Wednesday 12th March 2025.
No comments:
Post a Comment