In the early months of the Pacific War, Darwin bore the brunt of air attacks by Japanese Zeroes.
In fact, Darwin is the only Australian city to have been bombed by the Japanese in World War II.
The bombing of Darwin was recreated for the climax of Baz Luhrmann's epic film Australia starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.
Kidman's Arrival
Moviegoers who've been to Darwin will recognise Stokes Hill Wharf as the place where Nicole Kidman's character, Lady Sarah Ashley, first steps on Australian soil.
Macarthur HQ
Darwin also figures in the history of the Pacific War as the place where US General Douglas MacArthur set up camp after he fled the Philippines with the fall of Bataan in early 1942.
Macarthur planned to retake the Pacific from the Japanese from his Australian headquarters in Darwin.
The rest, of course, is history.
Cyclone disaster
Relatively unharmed by the war, Darwin was to suffer humiliating defeat and devastation at the hands of Mother Nature when Cyclone Tracy laid the city low on Christmas Eve 1974.
Cyclone Tracy killed 65 people, including 49 on land and 16 at sea, and the city suffered widespread destruction.
Kakadu and Litchfield
With a population of just around 80,000, Darwin is a relatively tiny city, although quite new since being rebuilt from the ground up after Tracy had struck.
For all its urban growth and tropical charm, Darwin is more a way station than an ultimate destination, most tourists traveling there opting to go farther east into Kakadu, Australia’s largest national park, or south to Litchfield National Park.
Both parks shimmer with outstanding Outback beauty where the world of nature basks brightly in the sun during the Dry and, in the Wet, turns into mysterious, often dangerous, storm-lashed haunts of the terrors that inhabit the wild.
So pay Sweetheart a visit
Some things you might want to do in Darwin
- Take the Tour Tub trolley (beats walking anytime) and enjoy some of Darwin’s more interesting tourist spots.
- Visit the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and give Sweetheart a cuddle. (Sweetheart is a five-metre crocodile responsible for sinking innumerable fishing boats.)
- Explore the arts, crafts and fruit at Mindil Beach Sunset Market. Some of the products come from Bali.
- See avant-garde films seated in deck chairs under the stars in a sunken amphitheatre.
- Or visit Aquascene and befriend the fish.
Next page > Darwin Regional Map > Page 1, 2, 3
