HMS Beagle – silverfox175

We sailed for the Beagle Channel at midnight on our way to Ushuaia in Argentina. We would have a day of cruising the Beagle Channel.

The morning brought some dramatic views – the above and the one below were taken from our balcony.

We didn’t have any idea what the day would bring for our cruise of the Beagle Channel.

The channel was named after HMS Beagle during its first visit to this area of S. America, which took place between 1826 – 1830.
It was during the Beagle’s second voyage to the same area that Charles Darwin was aboard as a self funded ‘supernumerary’, which gave him the opportunity of being a naturalist, although he was an amateur.
On reaching the Beagle Channel in January of 1836 he saw his first glacier and wrote in his diary –  “It is scarcely possible to imagine anything more beautiful than the beryl-like blue of these glaciers, and especially as contrasted with the dead white of the upper expanse of snow.”

Charles Darwin published his ‘Origin of the Species’ in 1859, and used information that he’d gathered during his visit to the Beagle Channel in 1836.

Later in the morning it brightened somewhat, but it also started to rain.

After lunch the rain eased and the views became clearer – the ship in the above picture is a small cruising vessel, and looked about the same size as our cruise ship, which was 30,000 gt.

We are now well and truly in the Tierra del Fuego between Chile and Argentina.

The black and white pictures were not taken deliberately as such, but to show that the world of colour had been naturally drained from the landscape.

We looked at the gap between the hill and thought it was an inland lake or snow on the hill.

It was a glacier with the melting under ice causing the waterfall.

A different angle . .

Everywhere we looked the drama of the landscaped showed how small and fragile we are in comparison.

Another glacier – is it any wonder that Darwin was so taken with the beauty of the glaciers.

The glacier blue was such a contrast to the dark satanic surroundings.

Pilot boat leaving after the pilot for Ushuaia, came aboard.

The Beagle Channel opens up, the pilot is aboard, so we can crack on a little more speed.

Our first port of call on the way to Japan was Darwin, which is the capital of Northern Australia, with a population of about 150,000.

Charles Darwin 1809 – 1882

In 1839 Lieutenant John Lort Stokes of HMS Beagle, was the first British person to spot the harbour of what was to become Darwin.  Commander of the Beagle, John Wickham, named the harbour after Charles Darwin who had been a ship mate of them both in an earlier expedition while in HMS Beagle.

It is ironic that Charles Darwin never visited the town, which carries his name.

It was not until 1869 that a permanent settlement was set up by the South Australian government, who at that time was responsible for the Territory.

George Goyder, the Surveyor General of South Australia arrived with 135 men and women to settle at Port Darwin. The town that was created was called Palmerston, after the then British Prime Minister.

In the 1870’s the 3,200 km telegraph line was completed between Darwin and Port Augusta in South Australia, which connected Australia to the rest of the world.

I took the above pictures, considering the significance it doesn’t look much does it ?

A lot has changed in the field of communication in 147 years.

The name of Palmerston was changed to Darwin in 1911, and Darwin was granted city status in 1959 due to population growth.

As we entered Darwin harbour the sun began to rise behind us, and I love sunrise and sun sets. This one was taken from our balcony.

I’d checked Trip Advisor and through this web site I found a company that offered walking tours around Darwin, cheaper than the ship.

We met at 8.30 am so as to avoid the heat of the day and the walk began. Our guide was a lady who was born in the Territory and had lived and worked there all her life and there wasn’t a question she couldn’t answer.

About ten days before we arrived, Darwin suffered another cyclone and the newspapers down south just love drama, even negative drama, so one couldn’t be sure if Darwin had been blown away.
Not being a great fan of the media I e-mailed the ‘Walk’ company and John (the owner) came back with a detailed explanation as to what had happened and that there had been a large number of trees blown over, but on the whole it was ‘business as normal’. During our walk it was obvious that John was correct.

During the latest cyclone our guide told us that she had lost all power for five days – she lived in an outer suburb not in the centre. Fortunately she was able to borrow a generator and managed to save her frozen and chilled food.

Quite large trees were ripped out of the ground.

Christmas day in 1974 seems to be the date that Darwin reinvented itself after Cyclone Tracy destroyed the city.
Most of the buildings at that time were constructed with corrugated iron roofs and the wind, at 200 km per hour, had a field day ripping roofs apart and destroying homes and various other buildings.

One of the very few remaining buildings from 1974, with a corrugated iron roof.

Darwin 1974, after the cyclone.

Signal tower bent by the wind in 1974 – currently in the Darwin museum.

Darwin town hall, which is all that remains as a memorial of the 1974 cyclone

Inside the old town hall.

The Anglican cathedral was destroyed, but has been rebuilt.

The stone entrance if the only remaining part of the original building.

Inside the cathedral

Taken from the entrance

Not far from the cathedral, in front of the new civic centre, we found the Galamarrma (banyan ) tree or tree of knowledge.

The above is a photograph of a photograph, the original was taken around 1915.

Chinese youths would sit under the tree and listen to the words of wisdom from their elders – hence the tree of knowledge.
It is thought that the tree is the remains of the rainforest that was cleared to build Palmerston / Darwin in the late 1800’s.

Below is the tree today – on the right is the new civil centre and when this was about to be built to replace the one destroyed in 1974, the plans were for the tree of knowledge to be cut down. Public protests caused the civic centre to be altered by three metres to accommodate the tree. The Terminus Hotel (which can be seen behind the tree in the B & W picture) closed in 1931 and was eventually pulled down.

China town (which was mainly to the left of the tree as we look at it ) was destroyed by fire during WW2, so the tree has a ‘grandfather’ claim to be left alone.