We are intending to clear out of Aus in early October for
Indonesia, with Kupang as our first port of call.
We've been planning to clear out of Thursday Island, and
head straight to Kupang, but I'm now wondering if it wouldn't be better to break the journey by stopping in Darwin first, and clearing out there.
We've no particular need for
repairs etc (which of course would be one good reason for going via Darwin), so the benefits I can see in going via Darwin would be breaking the journey into 2 x 4/5 day hops (and thus more reliable
weather forecasting), plus better victualing at Darwin (if we go straight from TI, we'll do our major
provisioning at Cairns or Cooktown, some 10 days prior to leaving TI.
Keen to hear thoughts from anyone who has done either trip (or ideally even both) - what would you do?