HIP HAPPENINGS

So, I don't know quite how this has happened, but Darwin seems to be getting a little trendy these days. There's raw/paleo cafes popping up, cold drip filtered coffee, wheatgrass shots, drinks in jars, hipster beards - and I even recently read about a local microbrewery starting up.
Ok, so we don't have cat cafes yet, nor have I spotted anyone reading Haruki Murakami under a 70's shade umbrella on the beach. There's also a distinct lack of the types of venues, clothing, eco-friendly, retro-vintage, paper goods, sign writing and book stores that are simply de rigeur if you want to make the trendy town cut...

But still...

To be fair, Darwin hasn't been historically devoid of a scene. During the carefree slacker-angst Reality Bites days of the 1990s we had some great little venues. My favourite club of the day is so modern-day obscure that you can't even find references to it on Google (sigh, it's a strip club these days and something in me just died a little). Foccacias (the 90s equivalent of sourdough) were the mainstay of every self-respecting student cafe and the now rather sterile university was a left wing socialist hotbed of 70s shirts, random performance art and underarm hair.

It was always a small town scene though. But with a young population that's steadily increasing every year, some of the southern trends were bound to start making inroads. On the one hand it's a welcome addition to a town that seems to be off the map for a lot of goods, services and performers. But on the other it still lacks any real traction for me. So much is new these days. Businesses start up, shut down or change hands so fast that it's best not to get too attached to any shops, cafes or venues. However, that is the nature of the Darwin beast. I'm glad to see a little more variety popping up around town.