September 9, 2018

The Northern Territory’s Best Artless Museum

By roadsrus

The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin contains very little art.   It’s far more about natural science and local culture.  You’ll learn a lot about living, and dying, in this part of the world by coming here.  Most of its visitors are spending their time in the comprehensive exhibit about Cyclone Tracy, a storm that completely destroyed it.   The only other object on display that got this much attention was Sweetheart the Crocodile.  This 5 Compass art museum without much art is free.

Sweetheart’s reputation began when it began attacking boats in the 1970s.  First attempts to kill this immense saltwater crocodile that was finally identified as a male failed, so it continued to roam free but died an accidental death in 1979.  More than 16 feet long and weighing 1720 pounds, Sweetheart was not the largest croc in the estuary.   When his attacks became more frequent and it became a good idea to trap and anesthetize him, Sweetheart got entangled with a log and drowned.  Stuffed and touring Australia, Sweetheart inspired a movie named Rogue and earned icon status.  He now permanently wows browsers in the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.

When Tracy blew through, the population of Darwin was 48,000.  Now, only 44 years later, it’s over 140,000.  Minerals and high tech bring people here.  Most who died during Tracy were caught in building collapses.  Tracy roared into town on Christmas Eve in 1974 and continued on Christmas Day.  This was one of those natural disasters, like Katrina, that the passage of time doesn’t ease.  People are still talking about it in Darwin.

In this museum you will also see what the inside of a Cathedral termite mound looks like and ogle a box jellyfish up close and well lit.   From October to May, Northern Territory residents don’t go into the ocean because the sting of one of these can kill a human in 2 minutes.  This still seems to be a risky place to live.

More benign displays showed me beautiful minerals, goannas that were described as the most diverse of Australian reptiles, and a couple of butterflies.  Australia has only 5 species of these but 75 types of moths and 53 kinds of parrots.  See what I mean about not much art?  Below, Rusty Peters “Manambarram” was an exception, but it was up temporarily.

Hank

About roadsrus

Since the beginning, I've had to avoid writing about the downside of travel in order to sell more than 100 articles. Just because something negative happened doesn't mean your trip was ruined. But tell that to publishers who are into 5-star cruise and tropical beach fantasies. I want to tell what happened on my way to the beach, and it may not have been all that pleasant. My number one rule of the road is...today's disaster is tomorrow's great story. My travel experiences have appeared in about twenty magazines and newspapers. I've been in all 50 states more than once and more than 50 countries. Ruth and I love to travel internationally--Japan, Canada, China, Argentina, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, etc. Within the next 2 years we will have visited all of the European countries. But our favorite destination is Australia. Ruth and I have been there 9 times. I've written a book about Australia's Outback, ALONE NEAR ALICE, which is available through both Amazon & Barnes & Noble. My first fictional work, MOVING FORWARD, GETTING NOWHERE, has recently been posted on Amazon. It's a contemporary, hopefully funny re-telling of The Odyssey. View all posts by roadsrus
This entry was posted on Sunday, September 9th, 2018 at 11:52 pm and posted in Australia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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