LITCHFIELD

Lions Club

Md 201-District 201-C1
Darwin Northern Territory Australia
Club Number:37178

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Page created at2006-11-30
and Last updated at:2006-12-12.

Humpty Doo

Small town between Darwin and Kakadu (and the home of the LITCHFIELD LIONS).
Humpty Doo lies 47 kms from Darwin on the Arnhem Highway. It is famous for the fact that in the 1950s it was one of the great failed postwar agricultural experiments.

Ever since the German botanist Dr. Maurice Holtze had carried out experiments in Darwin in the 1870s and 1880s it was believed that the future of the Northern Territory probably lay in its ability to grow tropical crops. Holtze had experimented with everything from rubber to sugar and rice.

The goldrushes to the Northern Territory in the 1880s had brought an influx of Chinese miners and the area around Humpty Doo had been used to grow rice to satisfy this demand. The rice had grown without too many problems but there had been no further interest.

Then, in 1954, after considerable CSIRO experimentation, a joint Australia-US company known as Territory Rice Ltd was established. The plan was to irrigate the sub-coastal plain of the Adelaide River and produce a commercial rice crop. The theory looked good. The practice was a total disaster.

In 1955-56 Territory Rice Ltd received agricultural leases of 303 000 hectares of land on the floodplain. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Wild buffaloes moved in and started destroying the paddies and eating the crop. Rats appeared and wrought havoc. The birds consumed the seeds as quickly as the company could plant them. The soil proved to be too saline and the drainage was inadequate. Add to all these problems the weakness of the management of the project and by 1959 the paddy fields had been abandoned. The management could find no one else to take over the leases so in 1962 they forfeited their land to the government.

Today Humpty Doo looks like the fringe area of any large Australian city. It is a combination of market gardening, low level servicing for tourists travelling to Kakadu and a small local shopping area. Agricultural produce from the area is shipped out through the port of Darwin while the town's proximity to Darwin has attracted people who want to live beyond the city limits but within easy commuting distance.

IN APPRECIATION

In recognition of the contribution of the Lions Clubs of Turkey, especially Lion Dr. Enzar Tore, in providing free web page hosting for Lions Clubs everywhere, the LIONS CLUB OF LITCHFIELD of MD201 C2. proudly displays the flag of Turkey on our site.
Click on the flag to go to the web site of Lion Dr. Enzar's home club - the Lions Club of Canakkale.

As an extension to the Turkish Lions' contribution, the Brisbane Ekibin Lions Club of MD 201 Q1 (Australia) offer assistance to Lions Clubs who want to take advantage of the Turkish Lions offer, but are not familiar with web publishing. They've already set up many sites for Lions Clubs world-wide, using Lionwap.
If your club wants to be on the internet, and would like some help, leave a message in the Ekibin Guest Book by clicking on the image above. This is a FREE SERVICE, so you don't spend a cent for their work. As Lionwap is also FREE, this means you get a web site that you NEVER have to pay for. - Is that a deal or what?
All your Club has to do it have some-one update and maintain your page, which needs not take more than a few minutes each month. The Ekibin Lions will even give you some tips on that!