A Safety Brief for visitors to Darwin, Australia,

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This is a warning to the people of the world

Before you travel to Darwin please consider the Critters and the Weather. If you then decide that Darwin is for you please read on for some tips about the place that may be handy.

The Critters

The Salt Water Crocodile

This critter has existed in its current form or one very like it for some time now (several millennia) and has seen no need to change. Where is the evolution in that, why has it stagnated in this backwater of evolution when everything else was off inventing the wheel, marvelling at fire or playing with their opposable thumbs? It stagnated because it is the perfect estuarine killing machine and can take down a large buffalo in no time let alone a soft squishy human.

The Box Jelly Fish

This is one of the major predators in the region and it can’t even lay claim to volition, let alone free will. This creature appears here, when the wind sees fit, for around six months and then shuffles off again after causing several cases of horrific scaring and a heart attack or two.

Between them, these two animals touched on briefly are by virtue of the fact they make the beach a dangerous place, the worst things about Darwin. For six months of the year you can't go in the water for fear of an almost certain exposure to horrific injuries due to a box jelly fish sting, and for twelve months there is a decent chance that a raw hand bag is going to take you from your beach towel and nibble on you.

The Weather

The Dry Season

If there was ever one city that required access to a decent beach it is Darwin. In the Australian winter the weather is great, fantastic even. 30 - 32o C for six months and if you see two clouds in a day it is called overcast. This is the best weather ever for getting into the water, if it weren't for the horrors lurking below.

The Wet Season

Then for the other six months, the Australian Summer, the weather is 32 - 34o C, with a humidity of around 95% on average. While the temperature is not that hot, it is the humidity that is the killer. As any one who has spent any time in high humidity will attest it is like hell, only wetter, when the humidity is up.

Read on if you are still keen to Travel to Darwin

The Drinking

If Darwin had a beach that was safe then maybe there would be something to do except drink. There isn't, so they do. Several cities and places throughout the world think they know how to drink, but nowhere is like Darwin. Beer is the only escape from the heat and the reality that you are in Darwin. With Beer (please note that Beer is used as a generic term for any cold alcoholic beverage (and that Beer is used with a capital B)) you can both cool down and imagine that you are not in Darwin. This has led to some people becoming so convinced that they are not in Darwin that they went for a swim and were never seen again.

While Australia as a country makes a good showing every year in the annual Beer consumption figures, Darwin has the highest annual Beer consumption per capita of any city in the world. This is helped in some small part by the back packers who flock here during the dry season and in some big part by the locals during the wet season.

The People

Most of the people that you meet in Darwin will fall into two categories. The first category is that of the Locals. These people are by virtue of their life of isolation in the remote corner that is Darwin are totally unaware of the rest of the world. They have even been known to become quite violent when you tell them that Darwin isn't the only place in the world.

The other category is the Visitors. These people move through Darwin with startling alacrity. They all disgorge from the busses and planes full of high hopes and grand plans, that are quickly either melted by the heat or eaten by a crocodile. Some profess a desire to stay here and work and some even go so far as to get jobs. These jobs rarely last long, usually just long enough to get the money required to buy a ticket out of Darwin.

The locals in Darwin will like to get to know you if you do venture to Darwin, as there is a good possibility that you are not related to them as most of the other locals are. The visitors to will befriend you and tell you grand stories about the adventures they have had, the places they have seen and the jobs they work at. They will then just as quickly and with a silver tongue try to sell you their tickets to 'places they cant get to' or get you to take over their jobs so they don’t need to give the boss notice. When this happens, and it will, think carefully about why they are getting rid of the stuff before you part with any money.

When and Where if you Must

Come in the dry season, Apr - Jul is best, and you will have a good time. The Beer is cold and plentiful as I have said and the locals are O.K. so long as you do not mention the outside world to often or to loud or they may decide you do actually want to take a swim after all. Most transient residents of Darwin will spend a lot of time on Mitchell Street. This has all three of the major pubs in Darwin on it within 600 meters. There are several (Blue Healer Bar, Mitchell St, and The Vic, Smith St Mall and a few others) that offer cheep food for travellers. Offers like buy a pint of Beer and receive a meal are common place in the dry season.

If you must travel to Darwin then please do, but remember that this place resembles the movies 'The Beach' and 'Deliverance' in alarming proportions.


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