WanAus 214 - Darwin ICEM - Charles Darwin National Park Charles Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
By WanderingAus on 10-Aug-12. Waypoint GA4535

Should be an easy find near one of WanderingAus' favourite places.

I've Cached Everywhere, Man is the largest cache series hidden in Australia. It is made up of the locations made famous by Lucky Star in the song "I've been everywhere" in 1962, lyrics by Geoff Mack, as well as other towns mentioned in verses made up by geocachers.

Darwin is the seventeenth place mentioned in the song, at Line five in Verse one.

Cached in:
Tullamore, Seymour, Lismore, Mooloolaba,
Nambour, Maroochydore, Kilmore, Murwillumbah,
Birdsville, Emmaville, Wallaville, Cunnamulla,
Condamine, Strathpine, Proserpine, Ulladulla,
Darwin, Gin Gin, Deniliquin, Muckadilla,
Wallumbilla, Boggabilla, Kumbarilla,
I'm a killer.

Having decided to place an ICEM cache in Darwin the next decision was where to place it. I have plenty of favourite spots in and around Darwin, so I put all the names in a list and narrowed it down to the best six, put those six in a hat, and pulled them all out.

Charles Darwin National Park protects areas of natural and cultural significance. It protects part of the Port Darwin wetland, one of Australia's most significant wetlands, as well as locally significant woodlands.

The 48 sqare kilometre Port Darwin is recognised as a nationally significant wetland because of it's large size and it's diversity. Thirty-six of the Northern Territory's fifty-one mangrove species occur in its convoluted system of inlets, islands and bays.

The Park lies on Frances Bay in Port Darwin, and includes the western bank of Sadgroves Creek, Reichardt Creek and part of Blessers Creek. Housing and industrial estates are its neighbours.

Although this Park is new, the land has history. Shell middens in the area show that Aboriginal people have used the land for thousands of years. Today, the Larrakia people speak for this land.

The area was part of a network of World War II military sites established during the development of Darwin as Australia's northern defence line. The historic ammunition storage and testing areas were built in 1944.

A large number of bunkers and other structures from World War II are scattered around Charles Darwin National Park. One of these bunkers houses an excellent World War II display.

There are half a dozen caches to attract geocachers to Charles Darwin National Park, not counting this one.

This cache is a drab camo'd 90mm diameter X 100mm high round screwtop container with a log, 2 pencils, a sharpener, 2 crocodiles, a horse, a cow, a camel and a dinosaur. Please be sure to seal the ziplock bag, screw the lid on tightly and conceal it as found, and watch out for muggles. 

There is no need to bush bash to this cache, a walk trail passes within three metres of the hide.

Swaggies are not tradeable items. Please feel free to take them without making a trade, but please leave a note in the logbook and your online log, and do log them online. Grounspeak Trackables (geocoins and travel bugs) can NOT be logged into this cache, or any other GCA cache. Please don't drop any Grounspeak Trackables in this cache, and if you find any in this cache please remove them and log a "Grab it from somewhere else" log for the trackable.

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