Darwin. A man, a theory, a place.
The target of 188 Japanese attack aircraft from the Timor Sea in February 1942, a 1974 Christmas Day unforgotten.
Darwin. A place that knows instantaneous death and destruction, and irresistibly astounding beauty.
Darwin is ‘Garramilla’ to the Larrakia (saltwater) Nation, its traditional owners. Country extends from the Adelaide River in the east to the Cox Peninsula in the west. Trade routes with the Tiwi, Wagait and Wulna people, as well as Indonesian fishermen were established by Larrakia. Songlines echo the millennia of deep connection to this saltwater country.
It’s a city that’s a dynamic and vibrant tropical centre of tourism and horticulture. Closer to Jakarta than Canberra, Darwin it’s the gateway to South East Asia. In the same time it takes to fly to Melbourne you can be in Singapore. Darwin also affords access to the ‘Island of Smiles’, Tiwi Islands.
Darwin spoils you for choice in terms of where you and your Instagram or TikTok presence is best matched and therefore increases your potential to go viral. Go viral, but don’t be like a virus. Be discerning. Be respectful. Decide to not make your TikTok account an environmental and community time bomb.
Nightcliff Jetty is a stunning sunset spot and a great place to fish from the old timber jetty. Take a rod and Instagram your catch of blue salmon, trevally, or a squid or three. See if you can spot a fever of Spotted Eagle Ray and celebrate with a brilliant pizza at NT Pizza co because you didn’t catch any fish and that makes the little pisces very happy.
Fogg Dam, a 45-minute drive southeast of Darwin is a beautiful place to watch the sun come up, since you’ve already seen it go down at Nightcliff Jetty. It flourishes with native pink water lilies and hundreds and hundreds of amazing bird life. Most spectacular during the wet season, when you’ll also see water buffalo. And crocs.
Of course you’ll see crocs. It’s Darwin!
While you’re there, feeling new day, early-morning energetic, take the 2.4km return Woodlands to Water Lily Walk to social-media yourself in the magnificence of the Paperbark Forest.
Flush with the need to have the digital appearance of the most Aussie in Oz, a barbeque, a billabong and the echo of an endless blue sky is a the backdrop for your TikTok video. To find it, head to Corroboree Billabong, hire a BBQ tinny and go wildlife watching.
In a tinny with a tinny, if you’re dialling up that most McOutback Aussie view of yourself. See brolgas and black-necked storks without a tour guide. Wonder why they’re called ‘black-necked’ when really, they’re iridescent. Know why jacanas are known as ‘Jesus birds’ and laugh your arse off at that. Stay overnight on a houseboat because you’re not ready to leave. Have proper stars in your eyes instead of mega ones on your screen.
Make your social media presence electric like a kingfisher at Berry Springs. These tropical waters are abundant with bird life, particularly rainbow bee-eaters (ergo bees, one must assume).
That nature so selflessly provides us with such magnificence of colour, and the dichotomy of resilient fragility, is the incomplete question we keep answering over the last century like an insolent adolescent.
Keep that in mind when you’re Insta and ‘Tokin’ your way around your own planet. Be respectful of that, wherever you are, because stupidity is always optional. It entices with the almost-guarantee of going viral. Stick a cat in it and you’re on a winner.
If you’re not sure about what’s idiotic, it’s going to Mindil Beach, where stunning sunset meets markets, and when a croc shows up close to shore and floats around for a while pretending it’s a Muppet stick with its crocky eyes, and eventually disappears from sight, idiots went into the water up to their waist.
That this saltie was only a metre-and-a-half is a moot point mostly made by idiots justifying idiocy. Not only is it big enough to do some damage but we all have friends that bigger than us or a helicopter tiger-mum in crocodile skin shoes.
Or body.
Instagramable certainly. Idiocy absolutely. TikTok that chompin’ croc. Fifteen seconds I’d reckon, and very Peter Pan.
Hang out at the 1934 Qantas Hangar when it was an Airway, and an ‘Ltd’ part of an Empire that didn’t strike back. Shoot yourself next to bullet holes courtesy of WWII. (See what I did there?) That it was also bombed generally means very little to someone wanting a strong social media presence which is what makes it so interesting for you to be there. Find out what it’s like to be around vintage cars and motorcycles instead of vintage clothing. Go all safety standards on ‘em and grasp everything to be grateful for now. Appreciate that it was once the steam from engines not espresso machines that got us where we were going.
Go for no other reason than you’ve never been there before. They’re the kinds of places you want to take your followers. It’s why they follow you. Baby ducks don’t follow mossy rocks.
Take yourself to the Mary River and spot crocs not made of Croslite.™
There are many places in Darwin to explore. Litchfield National Park. The Darwin Waterfront for mouth-watering Mexican, Italian and Vietnamese. All at the same time, if you want to Insta-gest that.
Be overwhelmed by spectacular First Nations rock art galleries at Ubirr, Nourlangie and Nanguluwur.
Learn how to say those earthy words. Respect country.
While you’re chasing all the sunrises and sunsets you can fit in, find the places others haven’t yet. Don’t simply rely on pages like this to tell you where they are. It’s your social media account. Don’t search for who you are via where you should be seen, on the basis of that’s what you read on the interwebs.
Be you. Unless that’s boring, banal and brutal.
Be you, do it well, and that’s how to make your way in social media with the presence you want. When you need the account management skills of a Social Media Marketing Agency, you know you did it right.
And if you never get that far, it’s always still you, being somewhere, not taking yourself seriously and that’s always hilarious. Especially with a cat, apparently.
