Darwin and Fogg Dam

We didn't really do much touristy stuff in Darwin - it's turned into a maze of streets running into each other all heading into the centre of the city. The town is built amongst the rocks and bays of the top end of Australia.
Darwin city centre is a few streets and a mall of a hidge podge of businesses crammed in together trying to earn their dollars.  Needless to say we looked but did't stop.

Being in Darwin surrounded by ocean Geoff decided to check out the local coastguard.  They had a boat, a small demountable for their main radio room and a standby crew that were on call.  They had only been in operation just under twelve months so they are a very new group just learning the ropes.
The public up here rely heavily on EPIRBs to save them, many don't have radios and there is no record of their details because they don't have to register their boats. Scary!

 The boat is moored down at the wharf which is just around the hill from the city centre.  We went for a walk out and checked out the bay.

Of course I then had to take pictures of the  custom boats moared there.

And I took quite a liking to one of the jet boats.  I feel the need...the need for speed!

 Looking across from the wharf is the gas plant on Channel Island. You have to go throught the town/suburb of Palmeston then head out to Channel Island across two big bridges to get out to that area.

Because the tides are so high, the water fairly rip in and out, so it is with a great degree of caution one should go boating or swimming in any Darwin waters.  The waters of Darwin have the usual bad guys - sharks, crocs, stingers but then you add these amazingly strong rips to the mixture and you would just have to be plain crazy to swim in an undesignated zone!

Fogg Dam (near Humpty Doo where we were staying)

We went for a drive out along the Kakadu highway and found this beautiful little spot called Fogg Dam.  You drive out along this narrow causeway - which is actually the spillway. 

 On one side they had a croc trap evidently there was a big naughty croc in there that was too smart to get caught but they keep trying anyway!

Obviously the birdlife didn't care about Mr Croc. Even though the water was receeding there was still plenty of water and the area is quite pretty.

 Again the mixture of colours are just stunning. It doesn't matter where you look there is always some wondeful facet of Mother Nature to admire and enjoy.