After a year and a half in Australia, our last stop was Darwin. The capital of the Northern Territory, it’s a small city. With a population of under 150,000 people, it’s even smaller than Cairns. This is the Australian tropics, and we felt the heat and humidity daily. Darwin is also home to lots of crocs and croc tours, and seeing the crocs is on our list of what to do in Darwin, Australia.
Arriving In Darwin
For us, just arriving in Darwin was interesting. We sailed there from across the top of Australia, with good wind pushing us west from Thursday island and east. Once we arrived in Darwin, we had to wait to get into the marina because of timing the tides. You see, tides in this part of the world are pretty extreme, with differences up to almost 8 meters. With those big tides, we didn’t want to anchor out and then wait all day to leave or return to our boat.
Instead we made a booking at Cullen Bay Marina. To get into the marina, we had to navigate a lock, which we haven’t done since the Panama Canal. It was a much shorter trip, but still stressful. We put out lots of lines and not enough fenders and got bumped and jostled. On both the entry and exit, the lockmaster was very helpful, but we ended up sweaty from the stress and the heat. Darwin is a hot place!
