To see the SHIP\’S BLOGS associated with this PHOTO GALLERY: Click the following links
Ship\’s Blog: Darwin – CLICK HERE Ship\’s Blog: Sail Indonesia Rally – CLICK HERE
To see the Wikipedia information guide on the Katherine Gorge: CLICK HERE
To see the Wikipedia information on Darwin, Australia: CLICK HERE Official Sail Indonesia Website: CLICK HERE
We arrived in Darwin, early July to get ready for the Darwin – Kupang Rally which would take us into Indonesia. We signed up for the rally as we needed to get to Bali for Nikki’s daughter’s wedding in late August. The rally would be acting as our “agent” to enter Indonesia which would otherwise be a paper work nightmare and a huge headache.
Welcome to Darwin. We learned in our tour last January that this pier was bombed and a constant target by the Japanese in WW2.
After a few days, we moved into the “Duck Pond”. This is one of the four marinas in Darwin, all of which have locks to enter.
Entering the outer lock: The tides in Darwin are one of the top 5 in the world. 18 feet!, about 5 1/2 meters.
Outer lock door closed behind us.
Nikki and I pretty much had to handle the lines by ourselves, but the lock operator was very helpful.
Nikki holding us while the lock leveled the water between the inside and out..
The turbulence was strong. We had to watch the hull while the water was leveled. Scott is holding the support line and watching the side of the boat.
Here, the lock door is opened to allow us inside the Duck Pond.
Of the 4 marinas with locks, only the Duck Pond (Commercial Harbor) and one other could handle us. The other one was cost PROHIBIITVE.
We needed to do some work on the boat which is why we went into the Duck Pond and took advantage of this time to take a tour of the Katherine Gorge. These very old and large termite mounds are EVERY WHERE in “outback” Australia.
Brush Fires.. Australia is noted for these, many of which are set (by tradition and permission) by the Aboriginal tribes.
A bit close, but no worries. These burn offs, reduce certain types of vegetation which promote other good types of vegetation used by local peoples for various reasons including food staples.
En route we stopped at a classic “Road House” which is like a small Oasis out in the middle of the long stretches of highway miles between civilization. This is most notable out in the “outback” which is the majority of the island continent of Australia.
Road Train. In Australia, they allow three trailers to be pulled up to 53.5 meters. That’s 175 feet!
Here you can see a triple trailer “Road Train”. These can weigh over 100,000 lbs. and don’t stop very fast.
Katherine Gorge Tour
Sights of Katherine Gorge.
Ancient petroglyphs of Katherine Gorge.
Nikki – Katherine Gorge.
Scott – Katherine Gorge.
Brush Fire coming down the slope of the Gorge. These brush fires often cover immense areas.
That’s a “croc”…..literally.
Tour group watching the crocodile.
Crocodile trap. These are used to catch and re-release out of this area.
After our tour, we left our dock at the “Duck Pond” and headed back to the anchorage to prepare for the rally.
Lock at the “Duck Pond” closed behind us.
Darwin is in the top 7 cities in size in Australia. A relatively modern metropolis.
En route to the anchorage – until we’d arrived here, the estuary was very shallow.
Back at the anchorage….anchored next to “Mr. John VI”.
Rally Meeting… There were about 212 boats in the rally, of which 187 went to Kupang and the rest to Samuaki, Indonesia.
We were anchored off the Darwin Sailing Club…..no hats at the bar!
Entrance to the Darwin Sailing Club.
John & Paula Westenholme of “Mr. John VI” with Nikki. John was a big ship Captain in his working career and is on his second circumnavigation from the UK.
Rally packets. 187 on the left to Kupang and the other 25 or so who would go to Samuaki on the right.
Queuing up to receive our permits, clearance papers and packets. Aussie Customs was here as well to check us out of the country.
Indonesian Coast Guard vessel would accompany the fleet.
On our chart plotter, many of the boats including us has AIS (Automatic Identification Systems) much like commercial aircraft. Here, Beach House is the black icon at the bottom left about 2 hours after the start. We ended up being…FIRST TO FINISH. Partly because we tactically stayed west of the fleet which had a great advantage on the third and final day’s predicted wind shift.