Our Big Trip 2014: Darwin - Thursday, day 1

We spent the day walking around exploring Darwin City, a very pretty place. The Waterfront area was impressive, lots of apartment buildings above shops and restaurants, surrounded by lush lawns and lovely gardens.

The Mall in Darwin City

There is an artificial beach as well as a wave pool and lots of walkways and boardwalks to take you right around the waterfront and pier area and some take you directly into the centre of town.

The Deckchair Cinema also operates in this area 7 nights a week from April to November

There is a lot of history in this area, ruins from Cyclone Tracy, The Bombing of Darwin, WW11 Storage Tunnels.

The gardens along the Esplanade extend for kms around the edge of the harbour to East Point Reserve allowing sweeping views across Fannie Bay and the harbour to the city skyline.

The city itself is a modern vibrant city, and with it's close proximity to South East Asia is well influenced by these northern neighbours. More than 50 cultural groups live and work together here to create a fantastic mix of cultures, this is very evident at the famous Mindil Beach market held on Thursday and Sunday evenings from end April to end October.

Mindil Beach Sunset Market - Northern Territory's most visited tourist attraction.

We were advised to arrive early to secure a parking spot, which we did fortunately, as the enormous
car park filled rapidly. We met up with Brendan, Jude and Laurie's son-in-law who is working up here for a few months, who arrived to say hello.

The fine selection of food was extensive, lots of Asian as well as almost any other food you could imagine, you could enjoy the tastes of five continents, over 50 different food stalls, more than 1200 different menu items, plus lots of beautiful fresh fruit smoothies and lassies.

There was a section of the market for arts and crafts, jewellery and clothing as well, but we were intoxicated by the flavours and aromas that filled the warm evening air as we wandered about.

We settled on some fresh oysters and a serving of the most amazing looking paella then sat on the beach dunes to eat and enjoy this magical, vibrant and entertaining event.

Look at the size of this paella, and it was delicious

At this stage Joy and Paula, our neighbours from Mornington, who are also working up here for a couple of weeks, joined us on the beach and we all sat and watched the sky transform into a kaleidoscope of colour as the sun set over the horizon.