A city with more than its share of disasters

We've all heard about the devastation caused by Cyclone Tracy in Christmas Day in 1974. And I kind of knew that Darwin had been involved in the second World War when the Japanese were heading our way. But I had no idea of the scale of it.

 There were 188 Japanese planes involved in the first raid and 54 in the second raid a couple of hours later. 236 people were killed, and 30 aircraft destroyed before they could even get off the ground. Of the many ships in the harbour, 11 were sunk and 28 damaged. Most of the deaths were people on board the ships.

 We visited a military museum where we saw a movie of the bombing, and also a museum on the rebuilt wharf that had opened just 2 weeks ago. It offered a virtual reality experience of the bombing.

As we arrived, a young boy had just completed the experience. He excitedly told us about what a cool experience it was. I thought I'd give it a try, but as soon as things started falling down around me when the first shell hit I ripped the headset off and I was out of there. Graham almost did the same when he found himself in a fighter plane.

It was an amazingly realistic experience - too much so for me.