TUESDAY, FEB 16TH--DARWIN, AUSTRALIA

Another great day touring here in Darwin, Australia! We left ship on a bus at 9:30am and first stop was the Aviation Heritage Center. And there she was almost filling the hanger--a B52G. The very same model of B-52 that I flew over 2000 hours in and flew 78 combat missions over North and South Viet Nam, Laos, and Cambodia back in 1972. It was good to see the old BUFF, as she was affectionately called. It stood for “big, ugly, fat, fellow”. I ended up being the tour guide, telling some of our passengers on our tour all about the B-52. I have SO many good memories of the airplane and my fellow crewmembers from my days in the Air Force. This B-52 is on loan to the museum from the United States and could be taken back if the airplane is ever needed back in service. During my 78 combat missions I dropped nearly 1.6 million pounds of bombs on Southeast Asia from planes like this one. She will always be a love of my life as she always safely brought me back. Some other stats are: she weighed 488,000 pounds at takeoff on our SEA missions and over 200,000 lbs of that was jet fuel, she could fly just over 12 hours without aerial refueling and indefinitely with fueling inflight behind a KC135 tanker, there was a crew of 6 (2 pilots, 2 navigators, an electronic warfare officer, & a gunner), unlike most other planes the navigators would have had to eject downward if the airplane became uncontrollable (the other 4 of us eject up). Luckily, I logged a landing for every takeoff so never had to leave the B-52 via ejection. From there we went to the Crocodylus Park where we saw both the huge salt water crocs and smaller fresh water crocs. As you will see in the pictures the salt water crocs can jump completely out of water for food. They can grow to 20 feet in length and can also run faster than a human can for short distances. Not too many people here in Darwin will go to the beach as the crocs could dine on a tasty human with no problem. Also during rainy season (right now) the water is full of poisonous box jelly fish so definitely no swimming in ocean now. Our guide at the park was dangling chicken heads on the line to get the crocs to jump. The fresh water crocs are smaller but also would not mind dining on your arm or leg. There is also a picture of a “joey” in the pouch of a wallaroo that is cute. Last stop was at the Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory with its collection of Aboriginal art and pictures of what was left of Darwin after the level 5 cyclone of 1975 in which 90% of the city was destroyed. Returned to ship at about 2pm and had a little lunch before spending the last 2 ½ hours working on this blog. We are sailing at 6pm for Komodo Island, Indonesia but will be at sea tomorrow again. So for the next week we will be doing stops in Indonesian ports. I better go get some exercise before dinner.