A change of plan had us heading to Darwin for a dinner date with a work colleague of Wendy’s. It ended up including a personalised tour of the Royal Australian Air Force base situated at Darwin airport. The drive from Jabiru to Darwin is only 250kms, with much of it on the Arnhem Highway with a 130kph speed limit for much of the way.
The forecast was for a hot day but, as is often the case, the morning was beautiful and we were up early. We were soon packed up and, after refuelling, leaving Jabiru behind and setting our sights on Darwin. It took a while but we eventually drove out of Kakadu NP and into flood plains and the occasional cattle property. Various crocodile-infested rivers were crossed, with some offering river cruises that focus on croc spotting and feeding the ‘jumping crocs’. We passed up the opportunity to participate on such a cruise this time – possibly next time we up this way, but probably not!
Humpty Doo is a strangely named place but it is the centre of the mango growing district. We believe their season is more geared to producing fruit for the Christmas market in the southern states. The trees are manicured to within an inch of their life – all with flat tops and very square sides in perfectly straight rows. Clearly a lot of mechanisation is in use.
Just beyond Humpty Doo we rejoined the Stuart Highway which we had followed north from Alice Springs – it seems like that was ages ago but it was actually only two weeks. Wendy navigated us to a car wash in Palmerston that we had used previously – they have a truck bay with a gantry for getting up higher; this is ideal for getting the dust and grime off the roof of the Prado and Tvan. It seemed we were not alone in wanting to use the truck bay as there was a queue of vehicles towing caravans (all of which were far cleaner than our set up) waiting. We subsequently decided to use a normal car wash bay as we were only wanting to blast the accumulated dust away – we weren’t there to detail the car and van. Having fed $25 into the cash machine we eventually departed with a near-white Prado and Tvan.
A few items were needed from a supermarket but after driving around and around the Palmerston shopping mall unsuccessfully looking for somewhere to park it was decided to head to the caravan park Wendy had booked, drop the Tvan off, and head to the nearest supermarket. We could set up and pack away the shopping on our return.
At around 2.30pm we headed over to the Darwin RAAF Base where Wendy’s colleague Jenny is currently stationed. Jenny has been working at the base for 18 months in an Operations and Logistics Management role. Most recently the base has hosted exercise “Pitch Black”, a multinational force (20 participating countries) running a number of exercises involving a total of roughly 140 aircraft. We were eventually signed in as visitors and admitted onto the base where Jenny showed us around. Her team are located in a bomb-proof underground bunker sealed from the outside world. A wall of large screen monitors display images of various parts of the facilities to help monitor on-ground aircraft movements. Needless to say, taking photos during our tour was not an option. We also learnt a lot about the “crash phone” – but can’t say too much about that online.
Once our tour of the RAAF base was concluded the three of us adjourned to the outside dining area of the Darwin Trailer Boat Club overlooking Darwin Harbour. Lots of conversation followed over drinks and a meal while the sun set in the west and the sky transitioned from blue to yellow, orange, deep red, purple and finally black. We eventually dropped Jenny back at base after a great night out and returned to our caravan park for the night.
