A rather eventful day of travelling today. About 45 km’s north of Katherine we encountered a serious road accident that had blocked the Stuart Hwy to Darwin for over 4 hours. We had about an hour wait and the vehicle queues both north and southbound stretched for many km’s. Most of us were out walking around whilst we waited and the vehicle behind us was an undertaker, taking a body to Darwin for a Post Mortem. Fortunately he has the refrigeration unit going as it was around 30 degrees at 1100. I wasn’t retail you of some of his stories but lets just say we had an interesting discussion.

Once we were thru the accident site it was off to Adelaide River for lunch and a quick trip into the War cemetery (continue the theme). But before that we had to drive thru a small bushfire that was on the side of the road, certainly enough smoke but the was an abundance of flames along the road edge as well. If we were back in Melbourne the road would have been blocked and the firies out attending to the fire, not here though!

The Adelaide War Cemetery contains the graves of the servicemen and women and civilians that were killed during the 1st bombing of Darwin by the Japanese in WW2, on the 19th of February 1942. Additionally it contains others killed in war in the South West Pacific theatre too. All up Darwin was bombed by the Japanese 64 times. It has special significance to our family as our father “Tommy” was here on that fateful day and for many more of the bombing raids by the Japanese on Darwin. He used to tell us he and his mates would be in the caves on Fannie Bay during the raids and watch the zero’s come in overhead to bomb the RAAF base. The Cemetery is a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery and therefore expertly looked after, its a memorial in its own right.