Harriet Daly, went with her family in 1870 to Palmerston, as Darwin was then called. Her father, Bloomfield Douglas, was the first Government Resident in Darwin and she later wrote of the experience drawing on entries in her diary.*
Her voyage aboard the little schooner �Gulnare� took �several days to get used to our limited accomodation and the inevitable suffering from sea-sickness.� Off the Victorian coast they were in the thick of a storm, �the vessel pitched and rolled incessantly and the wind howled, the rigging thrilled as the wind beat against it and (below deck) sounds of hurrying footsteps all night, mingled with the shouting of orders.� Describing her ordeal further, �Breakfast was an impossibility as the sea was washing clean over the galley and the sailors, who had been on deck all night were unable to obtain the cup of coffee they usually had at four oclock each morning.�
Of sailing into Port Darwin in 1870 Harriet Daly wrote:
�At last we came in sight of the little settlement�.the �camp� to use the name so familiar to every one and which to this day it has retained, consisted of a number of log and iron houses on either side of the gully��The opposite hill swarmed with black men and women, these unclothed spectators were the oldest inhabitants of this part of the world � members of the Larrakiah tribe�
�On closer inspection we found a pretty, well kept, and neatly laid out camp. The married people lived on the left hand side below the Larrakiahs� camp, in log huts with neatly thatched roofs��
She also wrote about the daily fare of the settlers such as tinned meat and preserved vegetables.
Cookery books were studied and every recipe, curries, mince, stews, were tried, in vain to disguise �blanket�, a term given to the tinned meat, or �iron clad food�.
The climate caused problems with the food supplies. She writes, �All the flour had to be carefully sifted before being used on account of weevil, mildew and damp coagulated masses that lined the sides of the barrels.�
Also, �Then there were cockroach hunts, we chased them out of their haunts, where at night they devoured currants, jam and sugar; in fact their diet was far more varied than ours, for they made plentiful meals off our boots, the coverings of our books and any stray piece of flannel in their way.�
Harriet Daly also gives a clear account of the dangers of the �crocodile infested harbour�; �Owing to the constant source of danger, bathing was forbidden by a general order. Disregarding the standing order against bathing, a smart young trooper named Davis, a strong swimmer, went for a swim early one morning. His danger was seen from the deck of the vessel �Gulnare� and men called out him to �go back� but the warnings were too late�.the monster came swiftly behind him, a snap of jaws and in a moment he had disappeared carrying Davis with him. The accident was so terrible, sudden and appalling. He had been a favourite trooper and one of the smartest men in the force. His body was recovered a little distance down the harbour.�