Darwin -  Apparel Doth Proclaim

Beauty is permanent and eternal. Attraction is changing and ephemeral. The One remains. The Many of the One change. You can get into beauty through attraction or reach attraction through beauty. In this world, these attractions, the Many, are the invitation to the bosom of beauty from the heart. And so, Shakespeare is right. Attraction is indeed an invitation. And like beauty, the infinity of the here and beyond, attraction, the infinity of the here and now, is inexhaustible. It has neither beginning nor end. Yes, the cover of the book matters! Darwin with its sunshine and the beaches, the first taste of the cover, is waiting.  

Darwin is located at the Top End. The Top End includes Darwin, UNESCO World Heritage Site, that is Kakadu National Park which lies east of Darwin, Litchfield National Park and Arnhem Land. Located in the Nothern Territory as its capital, Darwin is in the Outback of Australia, that is, including the Central Australia, the place where very few people live.

After visiting Esplanade and Lamerro Beach, and going shopping at the Shopping Centre in Smith Street Mall and from there move on to get  the feel of majestic Christ’s Church Cathederal, Casnarina Coastal Reserve and East Point Reserve, the next place is Nature’s Wonderland in the Northern Territory with the musical name, Kakadu.

Kakadu National Park gives the impression of an artist who is caught in an inspirational fit having before her an empty canvas. And she just picks the brush and begins to break the boundaries between animals and forest, between escarpments and waterfalls, between plains and rocks all of which are brought together under the same roof to live in grandeur, the grandeur of the creations of the human mind.

They are all there in this ecological wilderness where waterfalls run down the planes like antelopes, wriggling and rolling, where lily spreads beautifully like a carpet of coral reef  along South Alligator river and where the more you move around the closer you get to the melody of natural balance until, if the  patience to explore further could be nursed, the place is reached that returns the visitor to the primordial peace, made possible by human beings living in harmony with Nature.

It is this message of the peace profound as the promise for living in harmony with Nature that you cannot miss as you travel around in Australia. It is not just the given but what is done with the given that transforms the living space and so doing, leaves the footprints on the paper, in the garden, on the street, in the park, indeed in any place where the creative mind finds the home for the making of wonders.

That’s what is happening all over the parks here in Australia, in the buildings that fly, the sands in which forest grow, and here in Kakadu National Park,  with the abundance of wildlife and ancient Aboriginal paintings, with its Maguk Falls, Gunlom Falls, Twin Falls, Jim Jim Falls and the aboriginal rock art sites in Nourlangie and the wildlife regions Ubirr, Yellow Water Billabong, Cooinda, Mamukala Wetlands and Anbangbang Billabong, all centres of magnetic attractions for the visitors, yes here in Kakadu National Park, where ecological wonders cover a long stretch of land that grows to infinity with contact in imagination.

In addition to all this comes thst which competes equally as visitors’ priorities in Kakadu National Park. This park can boast to be the home of the longest continuous surviving human culture in the world. The culture of the Aborigines. The Descendants of the First Australians, the Aborigines, still live in Kakadu today. It is in recognition of its unique natural and cultural attributes, Kakadu National Park is accorded double World Heritage by the United Nations.

Of all the capital cities of Australia, Darwin is the least populated. It was originally named Palmerston after the British Prime Minister but was later changed to Darwin in 1911.  A place which was named Port Darwin was discovered by John Lort Stokes on HMS Beagle. The captain of the ship John Wickham gave the place the name Darwin after Charles Darwin.

The fate of Darwin has been very grim. A base for the action against the Japanese in the Pacific in the World War II, Darwin was bombed many times with loss of lives. And just when it was recovering, the Cyclone Tracey struck in 1974 and swept away 70% of the city. When the city was rebuilt, it has, like other capital cities of Australia, a Central Business District (CBD).  

Now you have been to the Northern Territory and Darwin and have seen you would say. We agree but not enough because that’s not all,  we hasten to add,  until you come to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, another World Heritage Site in Australia.  Like Kakadu National Park, you can dance to the name of Uluru-Kata Tjuta which is a compound name for Uluru, also referred to as Ayers Rock and Kata Tjuta also known as Mount Olga. Both are in the Northern Territory.

There is something extraordinarily awesome about Uluru. There is no stone, indeed no rock like Uluru in any other place in Australia. This may explain the halo of sacredness with which the local Aborigines envelope this sandstone rock formation. It towers above the surrounding countryside and like geometric circle, looks like it can always spread out to occupy the earth. ‘Uluru’ in the language of the local Aborigines is a place name that applies to both rock and waterhole on top of the rock.

In spite of its historical tribulations, Darwin remains the hub of the Northern Territory and the invitation to the natural, historical and aboriginal attractions of the state.