See this article on the flight to Darwin and this article on the celebrations at Darwin
The
Vimy landed at Darwin at 3pm on 10 December 1919. According to a Sydney Morning
Herald article of 29 December, the population of Darwin, ‘excluding Aborigines’,
but ‘even including the Asiatics among the whites’ was about 2000; there were
only about another 2000 such inhabitants in the entire Northern Territory – less
than one non-Aboriginal per hundred square miles.
So a
comparatively huge crowd of hundreds of people was present at the ground to
welcome the aviators and the next few days were a round of activities. Ross
expressed surprise and delight at the Darwin people’s hospitality.
After being enthusiastically received, the airmen were the guests of Mr
Staniford Smith at Government House, where they were confronted with hundreds of
congratulatory telegrams and cables. They had not realised that their flight had
attracted huge attention.
On 12 December Captain Wrigley and Lieutenant Murphy arrived in Darwin, having completed the first transcontinental flight in their obsolete BE2e aircraft (see published booklet and this newspaper article)
The Vimy’s engines had done 135 hours
and were 35 hours overdue for a ‘top overhaul’. The port propeller, which had
hit a ‘kite eagle’ at Calcutta, was showing signs of splitting, but the Smiths
decided to fly on. The ‘wet season’ was approaching and they feared that the
Vimy, left in the open, might be damaged in storms. On Saturday, 13 December,
they headed south, hoping to be in Sydney in five days.