The Stuart Highway begins in Darwin, ending at Port Augusta in South Australia. The city itself is built on a low bluff overlooking the harbour. Darwin City has a vibrant atmosphere coupled with a laid back attitude where action and adventure never stops.
Restaurant dishes come from all over the world including authentic Northern Territory cuisine like mud crabs, barramundi, buffalo, kangaroo and crocodile. The Darwin Harbour has a healthy population of barramundi & other tropical fish, which also makes it a world-class fishing destination
The greater Darwin area is the ancestral home of the Larrakia people who are the traditional custodians and the first inhabitants.
The Tropics
With an annual average of 32 degrees celsius, it is best described as balmy (from May to October) or sultry (from November to April). Darwin can have a consistently warm to hot climate, all throughout the year. The Top End has a tropical climate, with a wet and a dry season. Prone to cyclone activity during the wet season, Darwin experiences heavy monsoonal down pours and spectacular lightning shows. During the dry season, Darwin has blue skies and gentle sea breezes from the picturesque harbour.
Darwin occupies one of the most lightning-prone areas in the world. On 31 January 2002 an early morning squall line produced over 5,000 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes within a 60 kilometres (37 mi) radius of Darwin alone. It produced about three times the amount of lightning that Perth, Western Australia, experiences on average in an entire year.
A City Rebuilt
On 25 December 1974, Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin, killing 71 people and destroying over 70% of the town's buildings, including many old stone buildings. After the disaster, 30,000 people of a then population of 43,000 were evacuated, in what is the biggest airlift in Australia's history. In the late 1970s the town was rebuilt using newer materials and techniques.
