Saturday 4 August – Well we were up and at ‘em early this morning and at Aquascene by about 10 to 8 to be part of the activity.  Aquascene is a fish feeding sanctuary where at high tide every day, hundreds of fish just turn up at this little cove looking for a free meal.  It’s an interactive place where you are invited to handfeed the fish, and stroke them if you want to.  Baskets of dry bread are placed around the area and you are able to take two half slices at a time while the attendant points out the different species of fish that turn up.  There are heaps of mullet, and the first lot of bread I held for them, a mullet came and munched me as well as the bread.  I don’t think they’ve got teeth, so it didn’t really hurt.  This morning we saw mullet, milkfish, bream, catfish, barramundi, cod, groper, teira batfish, and even some small stingrays. There may have been other varieties too, but I can’t remember them all.

From there we went a short distance and did a bit of a walk along the esplanade where we went and had a look at the memorial to the USS Peary which was sunk during the bombing of Darwin on 19 February 1942.  Also along this strip we saw the Leichardt memorial and the Cenotaph.

A short drive further on, ably directed by Zola, we arrived at the Survivors Lookout from where we climbed down a large number of steps to the entrance to the WW2 Oil Storage Tunnels, where one of the eight tunnels is open to the public.  There were large boards of wartime photos displayed along the walls of the tunnel, which was I think about 171 mtrs long.  Again, most interesting.

By this time it was still late morning, so we drove to the Crocosaurus Cove – driving past the very beautiful Government House as we left the area.  The Crocosaurus place was right in the heart of the city, where we saw several huge crocodiles – including Burt, the crocodile featuring in Crocodile Dundee.  We watched feeding time for the junior crocs, and they selected two of the big ones to feed as well.  There was also a reptile section, indigenous display, etc.  After we had had our fill of vicious and venomous animals, we had a bit of lunch there and a sit down for a while as I am finding Darwin rather warm.  It is only about 31 or 32 degrees, but seems hotter.

We then went for a bit of a drive around the city coastline, before finding ourselves at the Defense of Darwin Experience.  This is a fairly new exhibition space and was very impressive.  It basically details the role of Darwin in WW2 and has a great video recreating the day of the bombing (I cried!), lots of war memorabilia and photos, and was really worth seeing.

Back at camp by about 4.30 we enjoyed a few cups of tea and sat out in the shade under our awning – it was very hot in the van.  Just as we were finishing our tea, the lady in the next door campertrailer called at our door and offered us some items of food she was going to throw out, as they are going to Bali tomorrow for 12 days and their van will be in storage.  That was very nice of her.

We found out today that Monday is a public holiday here (Darwin Cup day), so it appears that Grant won’t be able to have his blood test till Tuesday, as facilities are shut for the day.

We’ll go to the office here tomorrow and extend for another day or two.  I’m not sure what we’ll do tomorrow (except we’ll definitely be going to the Mindil market tomorrow evening), so we’ll just see what the day brings.