Any budding local film maker after a location for a 3D movie about the end of the world or another Dr Strangelove thriller should inspect , with the aid of an exorcist, the spooky tunnel linking the Darwin Private Hospital with the Royal Darwin Hospital.
Cyclops , lost and fearing an attack by Count Yorga , scampered down this dark wombat hideaway , clutching a stolen Gideon’s bible from a waiting room to ward off evil spirits. In one part , both sides of the walkway had thick clumps of accumulated plant matter blown in through the louvres . A drain cover was almost completely jam packed with the same matter and had obviously been that way for some time . A furtive fag could ignite this tinder dry rubbish.
Some walls appeared to be suffering from salt damp and paint on several doors were faded and grotty looking. One scabrous swinging yellow door in particular looked like a study in Golden Staph and Sunflowers by that deranged artist bloke who slashed off an ear, Vincent van Goggomobil .
Stumbling out into the open , blinking in the bright sun , still lost, but glad not to have been mugged or eviscerated , Cyclops found himself near the top secret hospital nuclear waste dump. All about were bunches of mutated weeds , plastic cups, cigarette butts , other assorted litter , and somebody seemed to be giving mouth to mouth to one of the Marlboro Man’s products , and I don’t mean a frankfurter.
To find the front entrance of the Royal Darwin Hospital, I was told to go back inside the catacombs and turn left. Rather than run the gauntlet of vampire bats , serial killers armed with scalpels , Lady Ga Ga in drag or the Health Minister on bedpan duty , I galloped up an outside flight of steel stairs , clutching my dodgy ticker , which reminded me of a scene from the movie, Escape from Alcatraz .
As I tottered up the stairs , I espied what looked Like the famed Hanging Gardens of Babylon , but sprayed with Agent Orange . A familiar trail of cigarette butts, blobs of black chewing gum and assorted paper litter pointed the way to the main entrance, with its ebola breeding telephone booths and unsightly splashes up against the wall .
