Darwinism

It was a gruelling trek between Cairns and Darwin on Monday.

I checked out of my hostel at 10am, but had to wait around Cairns - yes, it rained - until 4.30pm for my flight down to Brisbane. The direct flights to Darwin were out of my price range, so I had to go thousands of miles south to then fly north again. It was the equivalent of flying to Russia via North Africa.

The journey to Brisbane was made more pleasurable by the Virgin Blue in-flight entertainment. They provided access to 30 satellite tv channels, so I could flick between live sports, the news or whatever else took my fancy from the air. A far better entertainment system than a load of average movies.

I had to hang around Brisbane Airport for three hours before my connecting flight, which wasn't one of life's more pleasurable experiences. The journey time to Darwin is four hours, so I was hoping and expecting Virgin Blue would provide the same in-flight entertainment I had enjoyed on the two hour flight down from Cairns. Wrong. There was nothing. I was also sat on a row with a mother and screaming baby, and a drunken Canadian who was threatened with arrest in mid air for his rowdy behaviour.

I finally arrived at my hostel in Darwin at around 2am, which quite frankly makes the average prison look like a Holiday Inn. For some reason the time zone here is half an hour behind most of Australia. Why 30 minutes? I don't get it.

Anyway, Darwin. It's named after Charles. This place is unlike most others in Australia in that it has been built and re-built three times already. The Japanese bombed the living shit out of the place in World War II when it was a strategic port for the Allies to launch attacks into Asia. More than 240 people died in just one attack. If there ever had been an invasion of Australia, it would have been through Darwin. The people of this city can take comfort from the knowledge that should this ever have happened, the Australian Government had a contingency plan in place. This was to bugger off back to the south east of the country and protect cities like Sydney and Melbourne.

Believe it or not, the fear of Asian troops landing in Darwin is still one that persists today. Indonesia is but a small boat ride away - and possesses one of the largest armies in the world. The fear of attack has characterised the Australian way of thinking since the 18th century. It explains this country's staunch loyalty to Britain in two world wars, and subsequently its slavish following of America into both Vietnam and Iraq. At least we only went into one! Actually, to be fair to the Aussies, if playing a bit part role in Iraq is the price they have to pay for protection, it's not a bad deal. I mean, what exactly is the extent of their involvement in the war? A few bush rangers and a couple of kangaroos by the looks of it.

Anyway, if hundreds of devastating bombing raids during the war wasn't punishment enough for Darwin, it then suffered enormous destruction during a cyclone on Christmas Eve in 1974. This wiped out the vast majority of buildings in the city, including the former town hall pictured at the top of this post.

The Darwin of today is therefore relatively modern. I have heard some Aussies dub it a shit hole. I actually quite like it. Darwin is clean, friendly, unassuming and growing. It is, in many respects, a paradox - the capital of a territory about the size of France, and yet with a population of just 70,000. Today the temperature soared past 30 degrees and there was hardly a cloud in the sky. That's enough to endear it to me.