Another very short stop early on our tour that day was at the Charles Darwin National Park. This area has lots of Indigenous history and military history, plus being an interesting conservation area. A visitor could easily spend lots of time looking at these various aspects, but our tour specifically went to look at an old ammunition bunker which dated from WW2. The area was dotted with quite a number of these installations, but this one has been restored and turned into a small museum.
The next photo shows a trolley that was used to carry shells.
The next photo shows old grey coloured wooden boxes. I think these were used for fuses.
Our second last stop that day was at a rather large Military Museum...you are possibly seeing a bit of a theme here 😉
We started inside the building looking at the quite extensive displays...bit dark to take photos though. The museum guide who spoke to our group in the foyer, also recommended a movie which followed the historical events that culminated with the outbreak of WW2, and it was an excellent excuse to give the legs a rest...
A machine gun!
Out in the grounds though was a collection of military equipment...
And there were some out buildings also housing equipment...
And my favourite was this US mobile workshop...
The stories I've heard over the years, describe how when the war was over and the US defence units went home, they didn't bother to take all their equipment so a lot was dumped. ( in the bush, buried or thrown in the ocean are the stories) so it's not surprising that old US equipment turns up in our military museums.
Our last stop was at the Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery. DH and I started with a coffee and shared a scone as we were starting to 'flag'. 😥 This was another place where you could have easily spent a whole morning...or even a day! It is a spacious and well set out space.
We decided to use the little time we had to mainly focus on the Cylone Tracy Exhibit...sadly this had to be at the expense of the Art Gallery exhibits.
There were videos showing news footage of this 1974 disaster...
The next photo shows the total destruction of a Darwin suburb...
I remember this Women's Weekly...it had page after page of the destruction...
It was this old iron railway signal tower exhibit that really showed the fury of Cyclone Tracy!
There were other historical exhibits of course...including wartime.
We had a bit of time before we had to be back on the bus so we went to look at the Natural History Exhibition Hall.
How exciting was this place!
You could spend ages here just wandering around, reading the info boards and admiring the exhibits and their presentation.
A giant termite mound...
Lots of specimums to check out...the fish in the collage are life size by the way!
Well this has certainly been a long post, but after taking 4 posts to write about a tour that went from 7am until 3.30, I thought it was time to finish.
Our driver and guide for the day had been Rowan, who hailed from Timaru in NZ. That's what we found about Darwin; residents who have come from places far and wide to live and work in the Northern Territory. I guess it's like the 'final frontier' adventure 😉.
The next photo shows a trolley that was used to carry shells.
The next photo shows old grey coloured wooden boxes. I think these were used for fuses.
Our second last stop that day was at a rather large Military Museum...you are possibly seeing a bit of a theme here 😉
We started inside the building looking at the quite extensive displays...bit dark to take photos though. The museum guide who spoke to our group in the foyer, also recommended a movie which followed the historical events that culminated with the outbreak of WW2, and it was an excellent excuse to give the legs a rest...
A machine gun!
Out in the grounds though was a collection of military equipment...
And there were some out buildings also housing equipment...
And my favourite was this US mobile workshop...
The stories I've heard over the years, describe how when the war was over and the US defence units went home, they didn't bother to take all their equipment so a lot was dumped. ( in the bush, buried or thrown in the ocean are the stories) so it's not surprising that old US equipment turns up in our military museums.
Our last stop was at the Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery. DH and I started with a coffee and shared a scone as we were starting to 'flag'. 😥 This was another place where you could have easily spent a whole morning...or even a day! It is a spacious and well set out space.
We decided to use the little time we had to mainly focus on the Cylone Tracy Exhibit...sadly this had to be at the expense of the Art Gallery exhibits.
There were videos showing news footage of this 1974 disaster...
The next photo shows the total destruction of a Darwin suburb...
I remember this Women's Weekly...it had page after page of the destruction...
It was this old iron railway signal tower exhibit that really showed the fury of Cyclone Tracy!
There were other historical exhibits of course...including wartime.
We had a bit of time before we had to be back on the bus so we went to look at the Natural History Exhibition Hall.
How exciting was this place!
You could spend ages here just wandering around, reading the info boards and admiring the exhibits and their presentation.
A giant termite mound...
Lots of specimums to check out...the fish in the collage are life size by the way!
Well this has certainly been a long post, but after taking 4 posts to write about a tour that went from 7am until 3.30, I thought it was time to finish.
Our driver and guide for the day had been Rowan, who hailed from Timaru in NZ. That's what we found about Darwin; residents who have come from places far and wide to live and work in the Northern Territory. I guess it's like the 'final frontier' adventure 😉.
Military museums and natural history museums are our favorites.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing your trip with us.
God bless.
The museum seems to change its rules every year or so. Last year on our visit we weren't allowed any cameras inside, but on our previous visits we were. Looks like they have changed again. Thank goodness.
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