Territory Day in Darwin
Arriving back in Darwin we headed back to Robbie Robins Reserve to set up camp. Luckily after spending one night at a free bush camp on the outskirts of Darwin, we managed to squeeze into one of the last sites left. With everyone headed towards Darwin to celebrate Territory Day, the place was full!
On July 1st, just after 9am, we excitedly headed out to buy our fireworks for the night! For those of you who don't know, fireworks are banned throughout Australia unless you have a license. In Darwin though... On this ONE day of the year... (July 1st) between 9am and 9pm... anyone is allowed to purchase fireworks! They are only allowed to be set off that day though, between the hours of 6pm-11pm. Any other time of the year they are banned and you can be fined.
With this in mind we headed off to buy some and got a great deal on quite a large box of fireworks.
The kids were thrilled with their supply and we were all so excited and looking forward to the night ahead!
Heading down to Mindil Beach, where the main event was being held. We watched with 25,000 other people as a giant Territory Flag was parachuted down onto the beach just before sunset.
The giant Territory Flag being parachuted onto Mindil Beach
With Mindil Beach Markets to browse, local singers and bands on a stage set up on the beach (one of those who was Jeasica Maulboy) to watch, followed by a gigantic 45min firework display put on by the NT Government, this was the place to be!
All night long the beach was lit up by the thousands of fireworks people were themselves letting off. To see so many constantly being shot into the sky was spetacular.
Having found some friends, Troy and Ashton who were on holiday from Adelaide amongst the huge crowds earlier in the night, we all decided to head to Nightcliffe to check out the action down there.
Wow!!! It was crazy!!!! Besides letting off some of our own fireworks, we also had to dodge being hit by other people's fireworks going off around us!!! Crazy!
Heading back to Troy and Ashton's camp we soon grabbed their fireworks and headed out to yet again set off all different kinds of fireworks.
A few hours later after many a laughs and great fireworks, we thought we would finish the night by finding ourselves a geocache. So just after midnight we headed towards a reserve in Palmerston in search of a find. As we got closer, we noticed that the area this geocache was hidden in was actually on fire!
Well.... This wasn't going to stop us! Infact this motivated us all the more!
So with small fires burning around us, we set off to find ourselves this geocache and hopefully save it from getting burnt in the process.
It didn't take us long to find, and just in time! As you can see from the photo below, the fire was making its way towards us and it wouldn't have been long before it would have been too hot to handle!!
After signing the log book we made sure the geocache was safe from the fire and headed off for home.
Tired after a huge day I tucked two very tired happy girls into bed but not before they told me that they had the best day ever and requested we return next year to do it all over again!
What a awesome day and what a even better night! Territory Day certainly was an amazing experience and one we will all certainly remember!
Xx
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