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Tuesday, May 16, 2017

More Darwin Day Tour...

My goodness, I've been a bit slack writing of my recent travels. On that day tour we visited 7 points of interest and so far I've only written about the WW2 Oil Storage Tunnels and the Qantas Hangar. (Before I go on, I must point out that the old terminal building survived not only the repeated bombing of Darwin during WW2 but also Cyclone Tracy in 1974 which destroyed most of the city.) 


Our tour had a short stop at the old Fannie Bay Gaol.



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There are a number of buildings in this complex that have been preserved and others that just have the concrete floor slab left! The jail opened in 1883 and was used until 1979. It now houses a museum.

Another stop on our tour of Darwin was the grandly named xAustralian Aviation Heritage Centre and I must say that the US B52 bomber on display really impressed me, by its very size. It was huge and there was no way I could get a photo of all of it at once!



The information board said that there are only 2 B52 planes outside of the US, left...



The palmtree painted on the tail...😊

Another view, but still not the whole plane!



I knew I'd never be able to get a good shot of this behemoth of a plane, so I photographed a photo of one!

I stood under one of the wings and looked up....



An idea of the size of the plane with those 2 people standing under a wing...



There were other bombers and fighter planes too of course...



And displays of military uniforms...



Because of the bombings of the city during WW2, there was apparently a lot of wreckage in the Harbour which has been salvaged over the years...and some is on display at this centre...



And some more recent airline paraphernalia...

Well maybe not that recent! After all we've had 'airbridges' at most airports for quite a while and secondly Ansett Airlines is long gone!



And an old plane 'tow truck' now obviously discarded by Qantas!



 I loved this museum and I loved the gift shop even more, as I found and bought a number of Australian picture books for the little people in our life.

3 comments:

angela said...

Wow. Looks amazing
My hubby would love to see that
Looks like a trip to Darwin has to be put on our list. The one day we had was wayyyy to short

Jackie said...

Those were some lovely examples of planes, Harvey would love to spend some time there.

God bless.

Cynthia said...

Interesting that they were all American planes. Stood next to a B52 at an air show once and was equally awed at its size. It always bothers me a little to visit relics of war. It seems mankind could have evolved better ways to live in peace by now.