Darwin Reunion – Day 1

We had a slow start to our reunion yesterday morning and some frustrating time with cars.

Our rental car was showing a warning light that we couldn’t delete and I didn’t want to drive all the way to Melburne with it on. We arranged with Hertz to swap it over to a different car, so, off to the airport (about 20 mimnutes away) I went. Their location at the airport is not in the same place as the other rental companies but after three laps of the airport road, I eventually found their office in a different place. The only car that they had available was a Ford Everest (a large four-wheel drive) and it was too high for Jill to step into.

I didn’t find this out until after we had lunch with some mates by the resort pool. Consequently, our afternoon activities were delayed while I set out in search of a step stool for Jill to use.

We haven’t been able to travel with our reunion group on the tour bus as Jill can’t get up the steps. We have decided to follow them in our car. The group had well gone by the time that we had things sorted and eventually we set off to a museum somewhat late to where we thought they had gone. It tuned out they were somewhere else but we did have a quick look around the ‘Defence of Darwin Museum’ where we were.

This museum highlights how Darwin was defended during World War 2. Many people don’t know that Darwin (and Australia’s northern coast) was subjected to numerous Japanese air raids. In fact, Darwin was bombed 64 times and defences were very hurriedly organised.

Amongst many of the exhibits at the museum, was a map of the building of the Stuart Highway between Alice Springs and Darwin. We will travel home along the modern version of this road and I’ll be interest to see some of the locations where my father was posted in WW2. Before he joined the 2nd AIF (Australian Imperial Force – full time army) in 1942, he served in the Militia Force in a supply company at a number of places along this highway ensuring that esential supplies reached Darwin.

Transport was rather primitive then. This photo shows a wartime convoy of troops on their way up the road. Many are wearing warm clothing as protection against the cold outback nights along the way.

There were many more things to see at the Museum but these were the most interesting things to me.

We finally caught up with our reunion group at the Darwin Aviation Museum. It has an enormour hanger with an impressive number of planes – mostly military but some civilian.

One of the civilian planes was this little Auster that was flown by the Salvation Army Padre Service to remote locations in the bush. The Salvo’s do a wonderful job. They go everywhere. Even in Vietnam, I can remember driving in a convoy to some location way out in the boondocks and there was a Salvo in a Landrover with an urn and a hot cup of tea.

The largest exhibit was an Americam B52 bomber. It looked enormous but it is actually smaller than a modern day Boeing 737! I can remember a B52 raid on the Long Hai Mountains in Vietnam one night. These mountains were a VC stronghold and were about 8 km away from our base at Nui Dat. I clearly remember my locker vibrating on the floor of our tent even though it was so far away. It must have been an horrific experience in the drop zone.

Another aircraft was the very sleek post-vietnam era F111 bomber. These were the planes  that performed a ‘dump and burn’ at airshows when they released fuel in flight causing a long tail of flame behind the plane. 

I saw pleased to see a Supermarine Spitfire, famous for its role in the Battle of Britain in WW2. There are not many of these planes left.

Our day ended with a dinner at the Darwin Sailing Club and a gorgeous sunset. If there is one characteristic of the 85 Transport Platoon to note now is that it full of old blokes!