A quick tour of Darwin then I head south on my Solo motorcycle camping adventure S2 Episode 22

So while in Darwin I thought I'd give you a quick tour from an old local and when you want to do anything in Darwin you want to do it early otherwise it gets way too hot even in winter which is what's called the dry season here. I think it's about 24 degrees in the morning and I'll probably get up to about 30 today and that's the cool season. Most people wouldn't believe it but there is surf in Darwin and this is one of the spots I surf but the main spot's just over the other side at a place called Casuarita Beach in front of the cliffs. The surf is not great but it is surf. So up in the north you get very large tides up to nine meters around here if I can remember correctly and the water's up to here now but it'll go out a kilometre or more I don't exactly remember but from here you can walk directly across on the sand. This is where I grew up in a small cottage but now replaced with a set of units. Everything moves on. The notorious Lim's Pub known for being the roughest place in town but now it definitely has gone upmarket. So over there is where we were before. So these cliffs at Casuarita Beach was the main area we used to surf. There's not a lot of surf right now because it's the dry season. When you get the monsoonal storms come in this is where we were hanging out. This is one of the places we got chased out of the water. About over here, got back up here I remember just standing on here watching as this thing just moved through the ocean. The other place is about 500 meters out there. I was on a surf ski, nozzle popped up next to me and I turned pretty quickly looked around the head was there it was about a meter a bit long and I didn't look back again and I just head to the beach. Again lucky it wasn't hungry. Things you do as a kid. Oh how did we survive? There's also a man-made structure that's been put in the top of these cliffs. I'll actually show you the main ones of those in a bit. One thing you'll notice about Darwin is how green and leafy the place is especially at the end of the wet season. Because it's not always safe to swim out there they do have Lake Alexander to swim in so you don't have to deal with what's out there and it's not just the crocs it's also the box jellyfish that can be deadly. Like most places there are some significant things that happen there and some more significant than others. So Darwin's probably got two that I know of and the first one is what I showed you at the other cliffs a bit of infrastructure that was put in. So for people Darwin got bombed in the second world war by the Japanese and these are the massive gun turrets that were defending the harbour into Darwin. So what I showed you back at Casuarina beach there's also I guess they're spots for our soldiers to shoot from and there's a few others that were down in the sand dunes further along some mounted on the cliffs but these were the big ones into the harbour and they used to have massive guns hanging from the ceiling. There's this one here and there's another one in the trees over there. You can see how they're made they've just used sheets of corrugated iron and poured concrete into it. As a kid they weren't barricaded up and there's tunnels all under the ground here up to the other outposts and buildings and as a little kid we ran all through them. It's like a massive labyrinth like the best place for going exploring and discovering new things as a little kid. Look at the size of the doors. So the Japanese bombed Darwin on the 19th of February 1942. These guns weren't finished at that time. They were finished in 1944 and were fired and tested but well the war ended and they were never fired in anger. The ironic thing is the guns themselves and the salvaged shipwrecks from the bombing in the harbour were salvaged by a Japanese company and taken back there for scrap metal and if there ever was another invasion attempt, hopefully very unlikely, it would probably come from the north. So a lot of Australia's military is based up here. I remember many times being in the water on the beach and having F-16s fly directly overhead or Apache helicopters come up the beach. It was just part of growing up really. And the other main thing that happened to Darwin or event was Cyclone Tracy. It basically wiped the whole city out. You might call them hurricanes or typhoons from where you were from but yes Christmas Eve destroyed the place. I'm not sure how to clear images to show you on YouTube but if you go to Google and press the images and then type in Darwin Cyclone Tracy you'll see the devastation. And have a close look there are no trees left. Every building's gone. It was massive. What did they say? My parents don't talk about it. But they rebuilt and redefined a city and apparently they don't actually know how strong the storm was. Like you get category one two three four five. The equipment to measure it got blown away as well. Like everything. No buildings. No nothing. Yeah. And my dad says they never found our house roof ever. There was a big ram from one of the gas stations or stations from about 500 meters away that ended up in the side. No in the house. Yeah. This is the old wharf right next to the city centre. The new one is over there. Now it's full of restaurants and a good place to fish from. I remember going into and checking out a navy submarine here when I was a kid. That kind of thing doesn't happen anymore. This is Mitchell Street. It's full of clubs, pubs, bars and nightclubs and is famous for getting very rowdy. Well that's an extremely quick tour of where I grew up. Obviously there's a lot more out there. A lot more stories. A lot more places to visit and see. It is a leafy beautiful place. Great at this time of year. Don't let that fool you. It is stinking hot in the wet season. I mean melting hot. In fact even the tarmac roads get all sticky and move under your feet because it melts. So rest of the day I think we might go chase some crocodiles. So we've made it to Adelaide River and we're going to jump on the Adelaide River Queen and go see some crocodiles. Last time I saw crocodiles was in the surf. Much more pleasant this time I bet. I had some young relatives in Darwin at the same time and they wanted to see the jumping crocodiles. So I thought I'd bring a camera along and show you too. The Northern Territory is home to the world's largest wild crocodile population with more than a hundred thousand of the predators in the wild. They can grow up to six meters long and weigh up to a ton. They have a taste for fish but will eat just about anything. Cows, buffaloes, wild boars, turtles, birds, crabs and occasionally, yep, even humans. Between 2005 and 2014, 15 people were killed by crocodile attacks in the Northern Territory. Since 2014 there have been two fatal attacks, both in 2018. From the mid-1940s until the early 70s, crocodiles were hunted for their leather hides to the point of near extinction, reducing to around one percent of their previous population. But they have made a strong recovery to the point, because they're an apex predator, that the rangers are constantly pulling them out of the harbour. We made our way back to shore with all our limbs still attached. Just come down the cliffs at night to watch the sunset. Darwin has to be right up there with some of the most spectacular sunsets in the world. I had one more thing to do while I was in the city, but first I needed to clean the bike. The bike doesn't look too bad, all cleaned up. So after cleaning my bike, one of the other things I'm doing in Darwin is getting the bike serviced, because it's been a while. And probably a good thing too, because I've just noticed something. The aftermarket exhaust bracket apparently wasn't built to endure the Australian outback. So probably best to get that solved during the service, as that coming off day on the highway could make an interesting, interesting day. So I dropped off the bike at the Royal Enfield dealer, and they were kind enough to finally put my grip back on, which has been off since the Nullarbor. I got back and prepared everything else to head off again. I even got the washing done, and was fortunate enough to catch up with a second mate from school on this trip. It had been decades. Already sweating at five in the morning. I left early in the morning, with fog filling the air. The start of another ride, I get the privilege to see the sunrise over this outback landscape. I got an early start this morning, and knocked out a few kilometers down the track, and made it to Catherine. It's called down the track because it's the only way out of Darwin. To get down to here, you can turn right to West Australia, go straight down to South Australia and Adelaide, or turn left at three ways, go to Queensland. And that's where I'm going. For the first time, I've actually got a plan on the trip, because I've got some work that's come up, a project, and yeah, I've got to make it back. So I probably would have gone up through North Queensland, across the top, up the North Queensland, and down. But we'll have to leave that for another time. So basically, it's down the three ways, and then just directly across to the South West, South East corner, sorry. Yeah, so a few things I still want to do on the way. There is a photo I've been trying to get for the last 20 years, that I'll see if I can get this time. No promises there. And probably drop in on one more mate, to say hi. But for now, it's basically just head in South. This isn't really called bushland. It's more commonly referred to as scrub. It's not pretty like a eucalypt forest, or a pine forest of North America, or as green and lush as the tropical rainforest, like the dain tree in North Queensland. Scrub is a result of its environment. Really harsh, short of resources, and having to survive over half the year without any rain. But it is what a lot of the outback is made up of. There are a lot of people coming North for the winter, and they seem to come in waves. You won't see any vehicles for 20 minutes, then you'll see 10 in 30 seconds. If you do find yourself traveling through Mataranka, it has one of the best swimming holes in the Northern Territory. I had the ability to go a lot further with the fuel I have in the bike, but I keep stopping and filling up more because I get a break, and it forces me off the bike, so I don't push it too far. Having constant breaks during the day does make a difference towards the end of the day. When they say towns out here, a lot of the time this is all it is. A service station with somewhere to park, and hopefully a shady tree nearby. Sometimes you So the word town is used quite loosely. So I've just pulled up at Elliot to get some petrol, and just to have a break, just to rest the butt, and yeah, get rid of that road vibration. I've actually traveled this highway a fair few times as a kid on a bus going down to the coast to go surfing, and then I've done it twice in a ute, and once on a motorbike. I have done it in a Kombi, I'll tell you about that later. But the strangest thing, I've done this from Darwin to Adelaide on the Stuart Highway in a solar car, twice. So back a while ago, part of the World Solar Car Challenge, where companies like Honda, Ford, all those guys, and universities like Europe, all raced from Darwin to Adelaide. So basically race cars that look like cockroaches. They were pretty light, and coming past road trains with three trailers was always a bit of fun. And the cattle grids. Cattle grids were brutal, especially when you're lying on your back. So I am quite acquainted with this highway, sleeping on beside it, because the races took about, I think, eight days the first time. The second one's a lot faster, I think it's about four or five. Basically I'll do anything for a road trip. I was thinking about staying next to this river bed, but I'd made good time, so I thought I'd go a little further. Another roadside free camping area, which seems pretty popular. I'll keep moving on. I'd finally made it to Three Ways. Well, it's an easy guess why they call it that. South to South Australia, north to Darwin, and east to Queensland. It's funny, it feels like I just made it to a destination after riding 900 kilometres. But then I was off again, starting on a new journey heading east. It looked like there was a spot to free camp under a communication tower, so I was on the lookout for a very tall tower. It shouldn't be too hard to spot out here, and there it was. The tower I was looking for. This looked about the flattest, least rocky ground out here, so this would have to do. Well, I found a camp spot just past Three Ways. The only issue is the ground is quite firm. Pegs aren't going in. Hopefully there's enough rocks around. Probably done a thousand k's today, so a bit of sunlight left. Should be enough time to get the tent up and pass out. I'm actually feeling okay, which is good. Camp set up. After riding long days, I always check over the bike. Oil level, chain tension, condition of tyres. The one thing I'm checking is the amount of tread I've got left. I was a little worried, but it looks like I should be okay. I've still got three or four So now it's probably about two and a half thousand k's. One less thing to deal with, hopefully. Being so tired, preparing food is, well, not priority, so there's no tin tuner tonight. That'll be easier. And with dinner done, I watched the light fade over the spectacular view of a communication tower. and you say these are troubles of mine weary thoughts of breaking up coming under your skin don't know if we should stop or begin because i was there by your side with my eyes open wide and i know that will always be true there were no reasons why yes our beauty