Darwin never visited his namesake, more Crocs, canoe trips and free swimming!

After a leisurely morning of laundry and school work, we made our way to the Museum and Art Gallery of the NT. We were struck by two things: 1) it was entirely free, and 2) it was one of the best museums we’ve ever visited. Most museums are sort of old and stodgy with room upon room of ancient artefacts or stuffed, wired-together beasts. This place followed the same principal but the representations of the animals and artefacts were displayed in unique ways, often in action with other animals – almost bringing them all to life. A crocodilian exhibition had been held over due to its popularity and had the history of Charles Darwin’s ventures to Australia outlined at its entry. He was an amazing fellow, embarking on his round the world voyage at the young age of 22. After sailing through South America and the Galapagos where his theory of evolution developed, the Beagle made its way to NZ and Australia but never to Darwin. Darwin, the city, was named by Charles’ superior on a later voyage with Charles never actually making his way to the city of his namesake. He only lived fifty years and although both of his sons were knighted, his controversial theory remained too political during his lifetime and as a result the powers that be kept him on the sidelines. He kept his theory of evolution a secret, confiding only with close associate academics and only got on the ball to publish his ‘Origin of the Species’ when another scientist was espousing more or less the same theory and Charles was encouraged by his associates to publish his work. His evolutionary theory came about in a time with no knowledge of genes and mutation and considering the time period was revolutionary, setting up the foundation from which much of modern biology and science has developed.



The crocodilian display was amazing. It essentially followed the origins of crocodilians through to today. They were a split in the evolutionary tree with the dinosaurs and survived the mass extinction of the dinosaurs due to their ability to survive for months on end (up to a year) without eating. At one juncture in their past they were related to the deinosuchus, a massive 10-15 metre beast touted to be larger than T-rex and just as deadly. From our visit to the Crocosaurus Park we’d learned that estuarine crocs have a bite strength almost double that of the T-Rex – perhaps something they’ve retained from their deinosuchus days.



From the Crocodilian exhibit we wandered through some doors at the end of the hall into a massive hangar filled with boats – most from the islands and countries directly north of Australia. A 15 foot (or thereabouts) canoe was of particular interest in that it began its journey on a small island in Indonesia en route to another small island a few kilometres away but unfortunately missed its port of call and after 10 days surviving off rain water and dried fish managed to make it to Australian waters. There were 10 people on board including a 9 month old baby – all survived. Although a number of such accidental voyages have occurred from these islands and communities into Australia – only two have gone the other direction. One of note was by an Australian Artist (Ian Fairweather) who ended up paddling/sailing in a small craft some 400 kms to somewhere in Indonesia after going off course near the tip of Darwin. A plaque outside the museum details the events of his voyage and life.



Feeling well and truly cultured and invested with knowledge we made our way to the Leanyer Water Park some 30 minutes away to take in yet another free activity offered in Darwin’s precincts. We were awed by this facility as it made most leisure centres where you would pay substantially for entrance, look dismal in comparison. Not only did it have three impressive slides (one with an inflatable raft for two) and a large shallow beach-like pool complete with a section of smaller pools cascading into one another, but also a large water park with water cannons, smaller slides and water-play areas for the younger kids to enjoy. Beside all of this was a massive jungle-gym park fully covered from the UV by a massive shade cloth umbrella. It was hard to believe that all this was absolutely free. Perhaps the benefits on health and potential for decreasing the cost of inactivity, beach related injuries et al on local health care expenditures made sense for such a venture. Whatever the reason we were glad to enjoy it with the other multi-cultural subset of the population taking advantage of its incredible facilities. Back at the caravan we looked sadly upon the collection of generally aged and obese inhabitants of neighbouring vans seemingly perpetually locked into their small zone of existence with TVs blaring and nothing much else to do but sit. With so much to do and see it didn’t make sense to sit on one’s laurels wasting the time away. I remember a cynical old teacher of mine once stating, “every minute is one minute less” – a bit dark and morbid but perhaps a good way of taking in every moment we have to live and taking advantage of the opportunities we have when they arise. I think we sometimes push the ticket a bit too much as there is rarely much downtime in our agenda. Our biggest challenge will be finding the balance without giving up too much.

Rocks on Fannie Bay