Darwin, Australia

This morning, December 30, we sailed into Darwin harbor. Darwin is the capital of the Northern Territory and is part of the Outback. The town has a population of about 120,000. It was completely destroyed by a cyclone 0n Christmas Day in 1974. It has been rebuilt and the area looks very new.

All passengers had to come to the Nautica Lounge, get passports and have a face-to-face with the Australian officials. This country is really careful about immigrants and importing of almost anything.

This area has 2 seasons- wet and dry. We are in the midst of the wet season. The guide said rain comes every afternoon about 4:00. He said by the time the wet season is almost over, "everyone has a gut full of rain and ready for the dry season....and then the same thing happens at the end of the dry season."

There is no industry and everything is shipped in. We saw a truck with 4 long tanker type trailers attached to the cab. Can't imagine driving that long thing. The guide said sometimes having to truck everything in is "a bit of a bugger, but that is life!" What a good attitude.

We went to a wildlife park but were disappointed about the numbers of creatures that we saw. We saw wallaroos- a small animal in the same family as kangaroo. We saw some pelicans, water rats, many snakes, and the cutest little green tree frogs with little yellow feet. They were so brightly colored they almost didn't look real. There were water buffalo and emus.

There is a photo of me holding a small black -headed python. It curled around my arm- strange! It was very soft feeling.

At last we put our toes on the 6th continent on earth for us.