Establishing a European settlement on Australia's remote northern shores was never going to be easy. It took four abortive attempts over a period of 45 years before
DARWIN
(originally called Palmerston) was surveyed in 1869 by the new South Australian state keen to exploit its recently acquired "northern territory". The early colonists' aim was to pre-empt foreign occupation and create a trading post, a "new Singapore", for the British Empire.
Things got off to a good start with the arrival in 1872 of the
Overland Telegraph Line
(OTL), following the route pioneered by explorer
John McDouall Stuart
in 1862, that finally linked Australia with the rest of the world.
Gold
was discovered at Pine Creek while pylons were being erected for the OTL, prompting the inevitable goldrush, and the construction of a southbound railway. After the goldrush subsided, a cyclone flattened the depressed town in 1897, but by 1911, when Darwin adopted its present name, the rough-and-ready frontier outpost had grown into a small government centre, servicing the mines and properties of the Top End. In 1942, just five years after a second cyclone had razed the town, repeated
Japanese air raids
destroyed Darwin yet again - this time at a human cost of hundreds of lives (a fact concealed for years from the jittery nation). The fear of invasion, and an urgent need to get troops to the war zone, led to the swift construction of the Stuart Highway, the first reliable land link between Darwin and the rest of the country.
Three decades of guarded postwar prosperity followed until Christmas Day, 1974, when
Cyclone Tracy
devastated Darwin. For many residents this trauma was the last straw and having been evacuated they never returned. Indeed, the myth of Darwinian resilience is just that: the town has always accommodated a transient, easy-going population, happy to "give it a go" for a couple of years and then move on. The surrounding land is agriculturally unviable and Top End beef (an industry hampered by disease-eradication programmes and foreign competition) is among the poorest in Australia; most beef is exported as live cattle to Asia.
But since the mid-Nineties Darwin has been making a concerted effort to take itself seriously as Australia's commercial "gateway" into Asia. With the help of the tourist boom, kicked off by Kakadu's exposure in the film
Crocodile Dundee
, as well as some thoughtful refurbishments in Mitchell Street and the Mall, Darwin has shaken off the bland feel of a company town armoured against the climate. A spate of cool new outdoor eateries now allow you to appreciate the tropical ambience so that where once the city centre had all the life of a weekend car park, now it can be as lively as any other Australian capital. The NT government has even started work on an Alice to Darwin rail link, but many locals will believe it when they see it despite promises for completion within the next few years.
Day-trips
from Darwin include the popular national parks, Kakadu and Litchfield as well as the Aboriginal-owned Bathurst and Melville islands, which are a thirty-minute flight from town. They are Australia's largest islands after Tasmania and are well worth more than just a flying visit, if you can afford it. Also worth a visit are Crocodylus Park and the Territory Wildlife Park.
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