Museums & Waterparks

Today we didn't have to get up early. Yay!  First thing we did was go to the Darwin Museum where we learnt about Cyclone Tracy, birds, dinosaurs and land and water animals.  Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin in 1974 on Christmas Eve, a month after a smaller one had come through.  About 50 people passed away from the cyclone and some people were never found so they were classified as -missing.  We went into a sound booth and heard what it would be like to be crouching hidden in your house, hoping that your roof wouldn't be ripped off.  We also learnt about how poisonous some animals are and some new names of dinosaurs.  In one of the rooms there was a real, but not alive Saltwater Crocodile called Sweetheart which was 5.1 metres, it was humungous.  

Then we went to the Military Museum where we learnt about the 1942 bombing of Darwin in World War II.  Japan flew air raids over Australia 64 times because they wanted to take control.  235 people were killed in the first raid by the 188 Japanese aircraft that flew over the city dropping many bombs.  We listened to recorded stories of the army members and nurses around Darwin and watched a little animated clip of the war.  

After we visited the big canons we went to a Free Water Park!  
It is so unfair that Darwin have 2 free water parks and Melbourne doesn’t.  We spent the whole time riding on the enormous racing water slide, which was 6 lanes wide and I had to lie down on my belly on a mat head first.  It was so much fun and I ended up getting faster by the end.  

We also stood under a giant bucket which tipped down when it got full and it bucketed water down on us so hard it almost hurt my head.  Then we had to leave because we had heaps of races with other kids and it was nearly dinner time and it was going to close soon.