The final day in Darwin today, and third last day in the NT.
Our Volkswagen Tiguan, named Estelle, is getting close to the next required service. It would probably arrive at some point next week, based on kilometres driven. Aside from here in Darwin, Cairns is probably the only other place we could get it serviced between here and home – and given we had spare time here, and we really don’t have any in Cairns, I booked the car in for its service today.
The Volkswagen dealership wasn’t too far away from our apartment – and they only had a shuttle bus that took you into the city. So rather than get an Uber back here this morning, I thought I’d enjoy a bit of a walk – supposedly only 25 mins. Google Maps was wrong. It was much closer to 50 minutes, because it wanted me to walk along one of the main highways in Darwin – and it wasn’t until I got there that I realised there’s no chance of walking along there without risking getting cleaned up by a passing car! So that meant a bit of backtracking to walk home safely. I also did not fully consider that humidity was already at 165% by 8am. It was a hot and very sweaty walk home!
Without a car today, we decided to catch a bus into the city – there’s a stop right out the front of our apartment block, and it takes you straight into the city in less than 15 mins. From there, we headed down to the Darwin Waterfront and around to the RFDS’ tourist facility that sits right out on Stokes Hill Wharf. Rather than being paired with the Darwin RFDS base out at the airport, they’ve opened a purpose built facility for tourists on the wharf – and it’s really well done. For us, it was a bit of an overlap with our visit in Alice Springs – but we knew that would likely be the case, and we were fine with that. Knowing that visiting both places goes to supporting the RFDS was a huge part of it for us anyway.
The Darwin RFDS centre was focused heavily on the bombing of Darwin in 1942, and they had a short movie and VR experience that both focused on it. It was impressive and interesting, but it was a little strange given there was really no link to RFDS at all. The kids again enjoyed exploring a replica RFDS Pilatus 12 plane, and having a look at the other VR experiences focused on both a pilot and on a patient travelling with the RFDS.
As we finished up, thankfully the Darwin Waterfront shuttle bus was just arriving and it took us back around from Stokes Wharf to the main section of the Waterfront – I was not overly looking forward to the walk back with the heat of the day really kicking in today. (It was 34º today in Darwin!) Down at the waterfront is Darwin’s only safe beach to swim at (because, crocodiles) – a man-made little beach that is well protected from the rest of the harbour. We’d brought the kids swimmers with us and so they eagerly jumped into the water and had a great time swimming around. Debbie and I did bring our swimmers too, but we didn’t feel like going in – just sitting on the side and relaxing was good enough for us (100% in the shade for me, in the slight shade / slight sun for Debbie).
We headed back up into the main part of the CBD to find some lunch – aiming for something like Subway. We ended up being drawn into a little foodcourt in the mall by its air-conditioning, and we had a bit of choose-your-own-adventure for lunch. From there, it was pretty much time to catch the bus back home (to make sure we avoided the school run that our bus does after 3pm). I grabbed an Uber across to the Volkswagen dealership to pick up Estelle, and then dropped by Woolies to make sure we have everything we need for the next 3 days. Because a long road trip begins tomorrow: Darwin to Mt Isa! About 1,600km of driving over the next three days.
