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It’s festival time again in Darwin! Back a few decades, it used to be known as the Bougainvillea Festival which featured a colourful grand parade through the centre of Darwin. After the horrors of Cyclone Tracy, the Northern Territory Director of Health Dr Charles Gurd suggested the town needed some sort of celebration that reflected the community s optimism and their determination to rebuild. The festival was given a new floral theme and kicked off again in 1979. Here, a group of young gymnastics march past the Woolworths building on Smith Street as part of the 1986 parade. Over the years the festival grew and changed into what we now know as Darwin Festival.



Published: 7 August 2016

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Forgotten Territory was a weekly photo column of historic images in the Northern Territory News which I curated from 2016 until 2019 supported by the collections of the Northern Territory Library and other cultural institutions around Australia, as well as local history Facebook groups. 

Click on the images to read the story behind the image.

Warning: May contain images of people who have died.

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