Wendy James never saw the Bombing of Darwin, but for her and others, the pain lingers
ThuThursday 18
updated
FriFriday 19
FebFebruary 2021 at 9:18am
Wendy James was one of more than 2,000 women and children evacuated from Darwin before the bombs dropped.
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Eighty-six-year-old Wendy James will never forget seeing the newspaper headline Darwin bombed , even though she was just six at the time.
Weeks earlier, she had waved goodbye to her father Stan Secrett on Stokes Hill Wharf, one of 2,000 women and children who were evacuated from the then-remote Top End military outpost after the outbreak of World War II.
Cairns resident clocks half-a-million kilometres cycling around the world by the age of 78
ThuThursday 18
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Since 1977, Tilmann Waldthaler has cycled 520,000 kilometres through 143 countries, been held at gunpoint in Iran, hit by a bus in India, and sat next to reggae legend Bob Marley on a plane.
The Cairns resident has the body of a 50-year-old but is nearly 80 and still rides every day. I don t look like an 80-year-old, I don t think like an 80-year-old, I don t act like an 80-year-old person, he said. I can jump on my bike and do 160km today.
Born in Germany in 1942 and raised in the Italian Dolomites, the trained pastry chef came to Australia in the 1960s and had stints working in Sydney, the Gold Coast and Green Island, off Cairns.
Northern Territory shuts all remote road COVID-19 border control points
SunSunday 7
updated
SunSunday 7
Anyone who has been to a COVID-19 hotspot will be sent straight into mandatory quarantine.
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The Northern Territory Government has announced the immediate removal of all remote road border control points, although it says checkpoints will be rolled out again if the need arises.
Key points:
Checkpoints will remain in place at airports
Travellers will need to declare if they have been to a hotspot
Since the early stages of the pandemic, NT Police and Defence personnel have been stationed at remote checkpoints to help prevent the spread of coronavirus into the NT.
No-one needs telling that Australia is an enormous country, or that domestic flights are usually far quicker than travelling overland between two cities. But there are some routes where taking a relatively short plane hop saves a true pig of a drive. Whether through quirks of geography, road conditions or the need to take a ferry, sometimes going by air saves a whole world of hassle.
Adelaide to Port Lincoln
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At the tip of the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, Port Lincoln is Australia s tuna fishing capital. But it s also base for the only shark cage diving tours in Australia. The problem with getting there is the Spencer Gulf, which digs into South Australia like a dagger. If you re going by land from Adelaide, you have to go all the way round the Gulf, via Port Augusta – a 651 kilometre drive. Taking the short flight across the water with Rex saves a whole load of petrol.